You'll never guess what it is: I was certainly quite surprised to find out and so was Ed. Department of Energy under grant DEFG02-91-ER45439). He never knew what it was until I took it in for analysis by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois (partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DEFG02-91-ER45439) revealed the following composition for the core of the shell (the cladding having been cut away on a lathe):Įd Pegg found this strange-looking lump of metal/crystal in some sand when he was 6 years old, and has managed to keep it for 33 years through about 20 moves. Analysis by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois (partially supported by the U.S. I had high hopes that this rifle shell contained a depleted uranium core. These two Francs coins of 1944 were minted in Philadelphia on the blanks of US zinc coated steel pennies of 1943 ( this metallic combination was used but once in our history, replacing the former copper pennies, as copper was desperately needed in the war effort ). During World War II, as the Americans advanced into Belgium, it was decided that the USA would create this first coin of 'liberation'. From the eBay description: Here is the greatest anomaly in modern United States coinage history. This peculiar coin was minted on the same blanks as US steel pennies (see above), but it was made by the US for use in Belgium during the war. It is very magnetic, as you can see from this picture (there's a magnet under the paper, which is making the sand stick up). He panned this sand from a Lake Michigan beach, like panning for gold except you get black magnetic granules instead of rich. Department of Energy under grant DEFG02-91-ER45439) indicates that it is virtually pure iron.Īnother element (compound actually) from Chris.

Or it could be a crushing ball from a stone tumbler, but that's so boring it just can't be.Īnalysis by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois (partially supported by the U.S. But a close second, and probably more likely according to a civil war author I asked, is that it's 'canister shot', which is like shotgun pellets on a larger scale.

I immediately assumed it was a civil war cannonball, because that's the most interesting thing it could be. Price: $5/1000 (which is not a lot of bearings)Ĭhris reports that he found this approximately 2.5 inch diameter crude iron ball while walking in the woods in Pennsylvania. Ed Pegg reports that these particular balls were accidentally magnetized by noted physicist Stephen Wolfram, making them unsuitable for Ed's experiments. We think these balls are about 1/32-inch diameter. See hafnium for some pictures of a plasma-arc cutting torch cutting some steel plate much like this, and see oxygen for a story about how oxyacetylene cutting torches actually work. The sound is steel plate like this being beaten with a blacksmith's hammer. Just some old iron pulled from a junk pile at the farm. This is a bit of the steel wool used to polish the wax finish on the Periodic Table. It would still have application for machine tool bits that need to be very, very hard, but bridges, buildings, cars, etc, would be built exclusively of aluminum, and they would last virtually forever instead of rusting away to nothing after just a few decades.įrankly, the fact that iron rusts the way it does is one of the great lousy breaks in the world of chemistry. If aluminum were dirt cheap and iron cost as much as aluminum does, almost none of it would be used. (Aluminum rusts too, but aluminum oxide (rust) is a tough, hard, transparent coating that actually makes the aluminum stronger, and that completely stops the rusting process as soon as a thin layer is formed.) Not only that, it rusts in the worst possible way, into a flaky powder that splits off and exposes fresh metal to rust. It's very heavy, but worst of all it's reactive and unstable in air. It's actually a pretty lousy metal in many ways. The reason for this is strictly because it's incredibly plentiful, easy to refine, and cheap. Of all the metal refined every year the largest fraction by a huge margin is iron. Tools, machines, railroads, cars, bridges, buildings, all are built primarily out of steel, which is just iron with a few percent of carbon added. My periodic table poster is now available! Facts, pictures, stories about the element Iron in the Periodic Table

Iron periodic table