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we love those power laws
(mander.xyz)
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
I believe bronze and iron weapons are equally powerful, but bronze is a mixture of copper and tin (requiring two types of input). Iron is more plentiful than tin, so militaries do not need large supplies of tin if they can manipulate iron. Steel, I believe, needs much higher temperatures and purified inputs.
While iron is more plentiful than tin, it is harder to purify than tin or copper. The 'iron age' refers to the time when humans started smelting iron, and making tools using various steels and other iron-based alloys. These are generally much stronger than bronze.
Iron, like actual iron, is weaker than bronze. IIRC, tensile strength is copper<iron<bronze<steel, by roughly x2.
Nope. Not at all. Steel weapons are superior to bronze in every way.
The comparison was iron and bronze. Not steel and bronze.
There was never a time when iron was used in a major way until they figured out how to make steel. So technically it was always the steel age, not the iron age.
And?
... and steel was brought up.
But not in the context of a comparison with bronze. Nobody made the claim that Bronze was as strong as Steel.
Bronze is better at making musical instruments, and who doesn't need a trumpet or a tuba nowadays?