microrobert
08-26-2013, 09:45 AM
This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows that the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers
Researchers have finally found out why the jade-green cup appears red when lit from behind
http://media.smithsonianmag.com/images/phenomenon-Glow-With-Flow-631.jpg
The Romans may have first come across the colorful potential of nanoparticles by accident, but they seem to have perfected it. (The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY)
The colorful secret of a 1,600-year-old Roman chalice at the British Museum is the key to a supersensitive new technology that might help diagnose human disease or pinpoint biohazards at security checkpoints.
The glass chalice, known as the Lycurgus Cup because it bears a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind—a property that puzzled scientists for decades after the museum acquired the cup in the 1950s.
The mystery wasn’t solved until 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt.
This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows that the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/This-1600-Year-Old-Goblet-Shows-that-the-Romans-Were-Nanotechnology-Pioneers-220563661.html)
Researchers have finally found out why the jade-green cup appears red when lit from behind
http://media.smithsonianmag.com/images/phenomenon-Glow-With-Flow-631.jpg
The Romans may have first come across the colorful potential of nanoparticles by accident, but they seem to have perfected it. (The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY)
The colorful secret of a 1,600-year-old Roman chalice at the British Museum is the key to a supersensitive new technology that might help diagnose human disease or pinpoint biohazards at security checkpoints.
The glass chalice, known as the Lycurgus Cup because it bears a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind—a property that puzzled scientists for decades after the museum acquired the cup in the 1950s.
The mystery wasn’t solved until 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt.
This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows that the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/This-1600-Year-Old-Goblet-Shows-that-the-Romans-Were-Nanotechnology-Pioneers-220563661.html)