A History of Alloys

Abstract This chapter gives a brief overview of some of the key developments in human history. It shows how all the major events in the evolution of humankind have been both driven by and underpinned by the development of new materials. It also shows how new materials are always alloys, i.e. mixtures of simpler starting materials or components. It covers the following: the discovery in the Stone Age of how to use minerals (oxide alloys), and how this supported the emergence of human beings at the beginning of the last ice age and their development of agriculture-based settlements when the ice age ended; the discovery of smelting and the extraction of metals, notably copper and iron alloys in the Bronze and Iron Ages, which drove the growth of cities and civilisation, culture, trade and empires; the engineering and the manufacture of steels (low-carbon iron alloys) in the Industrial Revolution, leading to motors and engines, bridges, mills and factories, cars and planes, and most of the accoutrements of our modern technology-dominated economies and associated high-quality way of life; and the (microalloyed) semiconductors and the silicon chips that fuel the Information Revolution, computers, telecommunications, the internet, and the digital age.