1. cement never dries. cement and water form calcium silicate hydrate fibrils that lock water into structure so tightly that it doesn’t behave like itself anymore. the water always remains within becoming a part of the load bearing system, we just can’t see it
2. art made of cooler shades is more expensive. this made sense historically because of cobalt toxicity and extensive lapis lazuli supply chains, but seems to persist in modern times where blue hue is not scarce anymore
3. money is made of cotton and is technically clothing rather than paper
4. glass is structurally a frozen liquid
5. thermal receipts don’t use ink (clearly i didn’t take thermal at face value). it’s a lot more of molecular rearrangement rather than material deposition. heat enables BPA on the receipt to donate an H+ ion protonating the leuco dye in the reciept, making it absorb visible light rather than transmitting it. if you have to touch a receipt, you should try avoiding the printed parts because that’s where BPA is most unstable + in excess. more BPA data here for the receipt-curious 1
6. sapphire and ruby are the same material. aluminum oxide with iron makes it shift blue, and chromium shifts it red. they’re really substitutional point defects in a crystal lattice
7. eink displays take time to transition frames because the microscopic janus particles in them have one dark and one light side that need time to physically (!) rotate in a viscous fluid. this is why kindle pages take so long to load. and also why they have a long battery life - energy is only used to shift the particles 2
8. the east did not mass adopt glass at the same time as the west because they used more ceramics. leading to a later adoption of magnifying glasses, microscopes, glassware and telescopes and slowing their scientific progress
9. watermarks in money are just cotton fibers packed with varying densities to produce an image
10. pennies stopped being made because they cost more to produce than they’re worth
receipt touching edit prompted by RJ
edit on kindle energy prompted by DC