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The Father of Modern Metal - Issue 36: Aging - Nautilus

Sometime in 1882, a skinny, dark-haired, 11-year-old boy named Harry Brearley entered a steelworks for the first time. A shy kid—he…

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Hasnain says:

"What’s more, Harry Brearley didn’t know it then, but the stuff he cast from the electric furnace at Firth’s on Aug. 20, 1913, was nothing new. At least 10 others had created it, or something like it, before; at least half a dozen had described it; and one guy even explained it, and explained it well. Others had patented it, and commercialized it. Before Brearley got around to it, at least two dozen scientists in England, France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United States were studying alloys of steel by varying the amounts of chromium, nickel, and carbon in it. Faraday had tried as much nearly a century earlier. It’s not like Brearley was exploring unknown territory. That he is credited with discovering stainless steel is due mostly to luck; that he is credited with fathering it is due mostly to his resolve."

Posted on 2016-05-21T06:43:38+0000