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Natalka [10]
3 years ago
6

How did invention of plastic affect technology?

History
1 answer:
kipiarov [429]3 years ago
3 0
Plastic is a word that originally meant “pliable and easily shaped.” It only recently became a name for a category of materials called polymers. The word polymer means “of many parts,” and polymers are made of long chains of molecules. Polymers abound in nature. Cellulose, the material that makes up the cell walls of plants, is a very common natural polymer.

Over the last century and a half humans have learned how to make synthetic polymers, sometimes using natural substances like cellulose, but more often using the plentiful carbon atoms provided by petroleum and other fossil fuels. Synthetic polymers are made up of long chains of atoms, arranged in repeating units, often much longer than those found in nature. It is the length of these chains, and the patterns in which they are arrayed, that make polymers strong, lightweight, and flexible. In other words, it’s what makes them so plastic.

These properties make synthetic polymers exceptionally useful, and since we learned how to create and manipulate them, polymers have become an essential part of our lives. Especially over the last 50 years plastics have saturated our world and changed the way that we live.

The First Synthetic Plastic

The first synthetic polymer was invented in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt, who was inspired by a New York firm’s offer of $10,000 for anyone who could provide a substitute for ivory. The growing popularity of billiards had put a strain on the supply of natural ivory, obtained through the slaughter of wild elephants. By treating cellulose, derived from cotton fiber, with camphor, Hyatt discovered a plastic that could be crafted into a variety of shapes and made to imitate natural substances like tortoiseshell, horn, linen, and ivory.

This discovery was revolutionary. For the first time human manufacturing was not constrained by the limits of nature. Nature only supplied so much wood, metal, stone, bone, tusk, and horn. But now humans could create new materials. This development helped not only people but also the environment. Advertisements praised celluloid as the savior of the elephant and the tortoise. Plastics could protect the natural world from the destructive forces of human need.

The creation of new materials also helped free people from the social and economic constraints imposed by the scarcity of natural resources. Inexpensive celluloid made material wealth more widespread and obtainable.

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Compare and contrast bathing traditions in western Europe, Japan, and Southwest Asia.
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The bathing traditions across the world differ from one another, and there's always a good reason behind it.

Western Europe's bathing tradition is pretty much in the sense of avoiding the bathing as much as possible. People were going for months without bathing. The reason behind that were the diseases, such as the plague, and it was well known that the less hygienic someone is, the lesser the chances of getting a disease because the body will be more resistant.

In Japan, the bathing tradition was seen as a must, as the Japanese had in their culture that they should always be clean, smell nicely, but also it was an act of purifying. So the bathing in Japan, very often with nice smelling plants, was a common thing.

In Southeast Asia, people very bathing constantly, mostly in the rivers and lakes. The reason for that was neither beauty and prestige, nor threat of diseases, but it was practical. The region is hot, the humidity high, so people were and still are bathing multiple times during the day in order to cool off.

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In this period, which we call the Early Renaissance, Florence is not a city in the unified country of Italy, as it is now. Instead, Italy was divided into many city-states (Florence, Milan, Venice etc.), each with their own government (some were ruled by despots, and others were republics).

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I'm pretty sure its c.

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