A Paler Thaler
What does the Erzgebirge, or the Ore Mountains, have to do with us. Well, indirectly, just about everything. You see ... this low mountain range between Czechoslovakia and Germany was mined for iron in Medieval times, but in 1516 a silver load was found. The place it was discovered was called Joachimsthal (translated St. Joachim's Dale). This area was owned by Count Von Schlick, who claimed the mine as his own. In 1519 he commanded that silver coins be produced from the mined silver. The name for the new coins became Joachimsthaler. This name was then shortened to 'thaler'. As languages often do, this name by 1600 morphed into the English word 'dollar', and that is the origin of our dollars.
Now that would be interesting enough, but the story does not end here. It was later discovered that there was another material in Joachimsthal called pitchblende. This black, heavy, pitchy mineral was later to play almost as large a role in our lives as the thaler. In 1789, Martin Heinrich Klaproth extracted a grayish metal from the pitchblende (in 1810 he became the first Professor of Chemistry at the University of Berlin). He was searching for a name for the material. Eight years previously Sir William Herschel had discovered the a new planet and called it Uranus (I'll skip all the Greek God stories and reason why he chose this name). Klaproth thought he would sort of honor this discovery and named his new found metal Uranium.
At first, the only use for the metal and its derivatives was as a good coloring agent in ceramic glazes. With only .006% mixture it would produce a good yellow color in a ceramic. Stronger percentages would produce other colors, like orange, green, brown, and black. But of course, this is not the only use of uranium. Because it always has a process of radioactive decay going on part of the mineral is converted to radium. Later Madam Curie discovered radium in the pitchblende samples from Joachimsthal, and that was the beginning of research of radioactive materials.
So that is the story of Joachimsthal. You can bet the original thaler was worth a lot more than our dollar today. In fact, you could say the dollar has paled in comparison.
references:
1. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
2. Wikipedia - Uraninite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitchblende
Now that would be interesting enough, but the story does not end here. It was later discovered that there was another material in Joachimsthal called pitchblende. This black, heavy, pitchy mineral was later to play almost as large a role in our lives as the thaler. In 1789, Martin Heinrich Klaproth extracted a grayish metal from the pitchblende (in 1810 he became the first Professor of Chemistry at the University of Berlin). He was searching for a name for the material. Eight years previously Sir William Herschel had discovered the a new planet and called it Uranus (I'll skip all the Greek God stories and reason why he chose this name). Klaproth thought he would sort of honor this discovery and named his new found metal Uranium.
At first, the only use for the metal and its derivatives was as a good coloring agent in ceramic glazes. With only .006% mixture it would produce a good yellow color in a ceramic. Stronger percentages would produce other colors, like orange, green, brown, and black. But of course, this is not the only use of uranium. Because it always has a process of radioactive decay going on part of the mineral is converted to radium. Later Madam Curie discovered radium in the pitchblende samples from Joachimsthal, and that was the beginning of research of radioactive materials.
So that is the story of Joachimsthal. You can bet the original thaler was worth a lot more than our dollar today. In fact, you could say the dollar has paled in comparison.
references:
1. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
2. Wikipedia - Uraninite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitchblende
posted by Eclectricz at
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