What is amber? Detailed answer

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What is amber? Detailed answer

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What is amber?

In ancient times, amber was believed to have magical powers. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that amber could protect a person from witchcraft and disease, and therefore they wore it. The reason that amber was credited with such a mysterious power was its ability to become electrified. If a piece of amber is rubbed intensively, an electric charge appears, which allows the amber to attract light objects, such as pieces of paper. The Greeks called amber "electron", and from this word the word "electricity" appeared.

Amber is a fragile, transparent yellow substance. It is rather difficult to cut it into beads or small ornaments, but it does not have the hardness of marble or glass. A long time ago, some viscous substance was released from the pines that grew on the ground. Huge amounts of it gradually accumulated on the surface of the earth, and when the earth's surface changed, this substance was buried underground or under water. Over the course of millions of years, it petrified or hardened into the amber we now see.

Since amber was originally a soft, viscous substance, many insects stuck to it and got into it. And after millions of years have passed and the amber has hardened, the insects have remained in it.

And today we can find pieces of amber in which ants and flies are walled up, which look like they were caught only yesterday! The pines that produced amber grew mainly in the areas of the Baltic and North Seas. This part of the earth's crust, where the seas are now, gradually sank. In ancient times, amber was found only where strong storms raised the waters, and pieces of amber were washed ashore.

Today, amber is mined in mining. Amber is usually found in small pieces, although large pieces weighing up to eight kilograms have also been found. Amber is mainly used to make mouthpieces, beads and small jewelry.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Why is Hippocrates considered the father of medicine?

The ancient Greek physician and ancient medicine reformer Hippocrates (460-377 BC) is called the father of medicine because he was the first to promote a rational approach to the treatment of diseases. He departed from the views accepted in his time, according to which diseases were considered as a manifestation of the divine or the devil.

Having freed medicine from religious prejudices, Hippocrates determined the ways of its independent development. He taught that the doctor should not treat the disease, but the patient, taking into account the individual characteristics of the organism and the environment.

Hippocrates proceeded from the idea of the determining influence of environmental factors on the formation of bodily (constitution) and mental (temperament) properties of a person. He put forward four basic principles of treatment: to benefit and not harm, the opposite to treat the opposite, to help nature and, being careful, spare the patient. Hippocrates is also known as an outstanding surgeon: he developed methods for applying bandages, treating fractures and dislocations, wounds, and fistulas.

Hippocrates is credited with the text of the so-called medical oath ("Hippocratic Oath"), which succinctly formulates the moral norms of a doctor's behavior (although the original version of the oath existed in ancient Egypt).

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Red wine, white wine, iron 19.03.2010

Everyone knows the rule: red wine is required for meat dishes, and only white wine for fish dishes. The Japanese, who consume large quantities of fish and other seafood in large quantities, know that they also give an unpleasant aftertaste with red wine. Japanese chemists led by Takayuki Tamura decided to find out what is the reason.

Experienced tasters were asked to sample red and white wines with scallops (a kind of shellfish) and were asked to rate the presence of an unpleasant aftertaste on a scale from 0 (none) to 4 (strong). It turned out that the wines that give the strongest taste with seafood contain a lot of iron.

To test, chemists removed the iron from the wines that contained it and added iron salts to the varieties devoid of it. Indeed, they began to give an unpleasant aftertaste with the scallop. We tried to add or remove other metals - zinc, manganese and copper, but they did not affect in any way.

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