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April 3, 2015
Another story! This one if from the point of view of a little girl watching a man paint the inside of her house white, Titanium white to be precise. It's a nice story and we are given to understand it is even better in Italian. But I have nothing else to say about it.
Titanium (Ti 22)
“...It is a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density and high strength. It is highly resistant to corrosion in sea water, aqua regia and chlorine.
...Its most common compound, titanium dioxide, is a popular photocatalyst and is used in the manufacture of white pigments...[5]
Titanium can be alloyed with iron, aluminium, vanadium, and molybdenum, among other elements, to produce strong, lightweight alloys for aerospace (jet engines, missiles, and spacecraft), military, industrial process (chemicals and petro-chemicals, desalination plants, pulp, and paper), automotive, agri-food, medical prostheses, orthopedic implants, dental and endodontic instruments and files, dental implants, sporting goods, jewelry, mobile phones, and other applications.[3]
The two most useful properties of the metal are corrosion resistance and the highest strength-to-density ratio of any metallic element.[6] In its unalloyed condition, titanium is as strong as some steels, but less dense.[7]”
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“The relatively high melting point (more than 1,650 °C or 3,000 °F) makes it useful as a refractory metal. It is paramagnetic and has fairly low electrical and thermal conductivity.[3]”
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“Titanium was discovered as an inclusion in a mineral in Cornwall, Great Britain, in 1791 by the clergyman and amateur geologist William Gregor, then vicar of Creed parish.[34] He recognized the presence of a new element in ilmenite[5] when he found black sand by a stream in the nearby parish of Manaccan and noticed the sand was attracted by a magnet.[34] Analysis of the sand determined the presence of two metal oxides: iron oxide (explaining the attraction to the magnet) and 45.25% of a white metallic oxide he could not identify.[19] Gregor, realizing that the unidentified oxide contained a metal that did not match the properties of any known element, reported his findings to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall and in the German science journal Crell's Annalen.[34][35]
I admit I include the passage above mostly because of the reference to the “vicar of Creed parish.”
Around the same time, Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein produced a similar substance, but could not identify it.[5] The oxide was independently rediscovered in 1795 by Prussian chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in rutile from Boinik (German name of unknown place) village of Hungary (now in Slovakia).[36][34] Klaproth found that it contained a new element and named it for the Titans of Greek mythology.[21] After hearing about Gregor's earlier discovery, he obtained a sample of manaccanite and confirmed it contained titanium.
The processes required to extract titanium from its various ores are laborious and costly; it is not possible to reduce the ore in the normal manner, by heating in the presence of carbon, as that produces titanium carbide.[34] Pure metallic titanium (99.9%) was first prepared in 1910 by Matthew A. Hunter at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute by heating TiCl4 with sodium at 700–800 °C in the Hunter process.[4] Titanium metal was not used outside the laboratory until 1932 when William Justin Kroll proved that it could be produced by reducing titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) with calcium.[37] Eight years later he refined this process by using magnesium and even sodium in what became known as the Kroll process.[37] Although research continues into more efficient and cheaper processes (e.g., FFC Cambridge), the Kroll process is still used for commercial production.[4][5]
Titanium of very high purity was made in small quantities when Anton Eduard van Arkel and Jan Hendrik de Boer discovered the iodide, or crystal bar, process in 1925, by reacting with iodine and decomposing the formed vapors over a hot filament to pure metal.[38]
In the 1950s and 1960s the Soviet Union pioneered the use of titanium in military and submarine applications (Alfa class and Mike class)[39] as part of programs related to the Cold War.[40] Starting in the early 1950s, titanium began to be used extensively for military aviation purposes, particularly in high-performance jets, starting with aircraft such as the F100 Super Sabre and Lockheed A-12.”
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“In terms of fabrication, all welding of titanium must be done in an inert atmosphere of argon or helium in order to shield it from contamination with atmospheric gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, or hydrogen.[12] Contamination will cause a variety of conditions, such as embrittlement, which will reduce the integrity of the assembly welds and lead to joint failure.
Commercially pure flat product (sheet, plate) can be formed readily, but processing must take into account the fact that the metal has a "memory" and tends to spring back. This is especially true of certain high-strength alloys.[54][55] Titanium cannot be soldered without first pre-plating it in a metal that is solderable.[56] The metal can be machined using the same equipment and via the same processes as stainless steel.[12]”
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“About 95% of titanium ore extracted from the Earth is destined for refinement into titanium dioxide (TiO 2), an intensely white permanent pigment used in paints, paper, toothpaste, and plastics.[18] It is also used in cement, in gemstones, as an optical opacifier in paper,[58] and a strengthening agent in graphite composite fishing rods and golf clubs.
TiO 2 powder is chemically inert, resists fading in sunlight, and is very opaque: this allows it to impart a pure and brilliant white color to the brown or gray chemicals that form the majority of household plastics...[5] Paint made with titanium dioxide does well in severe temperatures, and stands up to marine environments.[5] Pure titanium dioxide has a very high index of refraction and an optical dispersion higher than diamond.[4] In addition to being a very important pigment, titanium dioxide is also used in sunscreens due to its ability to protect skin by itself.[10]”
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“Titanium biocompatibility: Because it is biocompatible (it is non-toxic and is not rejected by the body), titanium has many medical uses, including surgical implements and implants, such as hip balls and sockets (joint replacement) that can stay in place for up to 20 years.[34] The titanium is often alloyed with about 4% aluminium or 6% Al and 4% vanadium.[83]
Titanium has the inherent ability to osseointegrate, enabling use in dental implants that can last for over 30 years. This property is also useful for orthopedic implant applications.[34] These benefit from titanium's lower modulus of elasticity (Young's modulus) to more closely match that of the bone that such devices are intended to repair. As a result, skeletal loads are more evenly shared between bone and implant, leading to a lower incidence of bone degradation due to stress shielding and periprosthetic bone fractures, which occur at the boundaries of orthopedic implants. However, titanium alloys' stiffness is still more than twice that of bone, so adjacent bone bears a greatly reduced load and may deteriorate.[84]
Because titanium is non-ferromagnetic, patients with titanium implants can be safely examined with magnetic resonance imaging (convenient for long-term implants). Preparing titanium for implantation in the body involves subjecting it to a high-temperature plasma arc which removes the surface atoms, exposing fresh titanium that is instantly oxidized.[34]” -Wiki
Rand & Eddy
Recently I ran into the following article about Ayn Rand titled, "How Ayn Rand Helped Turn the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation" (Here). Since I devoured Atlas Shrugged probably in my third year at university -- I finally had to drive up into the mountains and finish it while car camping just so I could get back to studying for my finals -- but haven't read her since, I was struck by some passages in this article.
Rand said, "Capitalism and altruism are incompatible....The choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and man’s happiness on earth—or the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces.” For many young people, hearing that it is “moral” to care only about oneself can be intoxicating, and some get addicted to this idea for life.
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Rand demonized Plato, and her youthful Collective members were taught to despise him. If Rand really believed that the Socratic Method described by Plato of discovering accurate definitions and clear thinking did not qualify as “reason,” why then did she regularly attempt it with her Collective?
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...For Rand, all altruists were manipulators. What could be more seductive to kids who discerned the motives of martyr parents, Christian missionaries and U.S. foreign aiders? ... Some of Rand’s novel heroes did have integrity, however, for Rand there is no struggle to discover the distinction between true integrity and childish vanity. Rand’s integrity was her vanity, and it consisted of getting as much money and control as possible, copulating with whomever she wanted regardless of who would get hurt, and her always being right. To equate one’s selfishness, vanity, and egotism with one’s integrity liberates young people from the struggle to distinguish integrity from selfishness, vanity, and egotism.
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In recent years, we have entered a phase where it is apparently okay for major political figures to publicly embrace Rand despite her contempt for Christianity. In contrast, during Ayn Rand’s life, her philosophy that celebrated self-interest was a private pleasure for the 1 percent but she was a public embarrassment for them. They used her books to congratulate themselves on the morality of their selfishness, but they publicly steered clear of Rand because of her views on religion and God. Rand, for example, had stated on national television, “I am against God. I don’t approve of religion. It is a sign of a psychological weakness. I regard it as an evil.”
Actually, again inconsistent, Rand did have a God. It was herself. She said:
Actually, again inconsistent, Rand did have a God. It was herself. She said:
I am done with the monster of “we,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: “I.”
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All this reminds me of Michel Foucault, Georges Bataille and Nietzsche. I did a quick search and found a fairly academic piece about Rand and Nietzsche which emphasized all the differences in their respective philosophies, but I think that almost supports my suspicion that she is acting as a popularizer of a faulty version of his ideas. And this is where Mary Baker Eddy comes in because I've always had the same feeling about her and Baruch Spinoza.
If I noticed, back in 1973-74, Nietzsche's influence on Rand I don't recall it, but now I see her as a Libertarian sort of Übermensch with an ethics beyond good and evil. Even her dislike of Plato is a more reasonable version of Nietzsche's attack on Socrates (who we only know through the writings of Plato and Xenophon) in The Birth of Tragedy.
I admit that Foucault would have despised many of her philosophical ideas, but when it came to personal ethics I think they could have been BFFs. (Dear Goat! I just did a Foucault+Rand search and found This, "Reading Ayn Rand Through The Foucauldian Cut of Nietzchean Genealogy". Alas, I'm not the first one to notice this connection.)
Having relatives involved with Christian Science -- though for them it seems to have been less religious or philosophical and more a real estate cult -- I read enough of Mary Baker Eddy's book to recognize ideas from Baruch Spinoza.
“Christian Scientists call themselves Christian. There are those who argue with this claim in that CCS beliefs are different al [sic] almost every core Doctrine of Biblical Christianity. Christian Science is a revival of ancient Pantheism. Pantheists believe the Universe is identical with Divinity. Pantheists don’t believe in a personal God. Baruch Spinoza, a Jewish-Dutch philosopher, was the most celebrated of Pantheism [sic]. Spinoza, who laid the groundwork for the Age of Enlightenment, the 18th Century [I give up], espoused body and spirit are the same in contrast to Descartes who said body and spirit are different.” -Illiterate source
How curious that two women, in such varied epochs, have popularized for the common man a version of the ideas of two great philosophical minds. And how appropriate that Mary Baker Eddy took the route of religion while Ayn Rand went with a literary/economic approach.
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