this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
1065 points (99.1% liked)

Science Memes

14079 readers
2921 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
1065
SPIRIT WEAPON (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
58 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

https://bigthink.com/hard-science/norse-rituals/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You know you are in for a good time when you get to the chapter called "Sexual connotations".

I'm not an expert on the field, so I've read the paper, but am not qualified to draw conclusions from it. But as I read it, the focus is more on the role of ritual and religion in the making of the iron. And the transfer of knowledge through this process and hypothesize the addition of the burning of bone is actually beneficial.

However they do not approach this from a material technology standpoint. So I would love for someone with knowledge on this point to chime in. It's very interesting if the people back in the day knew how to make low carbon iron and the little bit of carbon they did add came from the burning of the bones. But as I see it the burning of the bones is more a ritual kind of thing and getting all of the carbon out of the iron is the harder thing to do, not putting the carbon in.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Bone char isn't super high carbon, so it's possible that either the calcium phosphate or calcium carbonate is playing a roll.

But honestly, you're probably not getting very much of it mixed in from primitive smelting or forging methods.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Low carbon is actually a good thing to help avoid including too much and making the steel brittle.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I am by no means a material scientist or biologist, but I have studied a lot of them and have some curiosities.

It would be interesting to see how calcium doping modified the properties of the alloy. AFAIK the temperatures that iron smelts at is to high for the carbonate or phosphate bonds to remain stable, so most of it should have ended up as free calcium or phosphorus.

I also imagine that the type of bones have a lot to do with it, since avian bones have a different composition and density than say, a moose bone. Different kinds of animals also have evolved different metal doping concentrations.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You've studied a lot of material scientists and biologists? What we talking here? Questionnaires or binoculars in the bushes?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do you not have a collection of scientists pinned to your wall for display purposes?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Shhhh. You will scare them.