Copper is one of the first metals worked by humans, hammered into ornaments and tools from native deposits as early as 9000 BCE and smelted from ore by around 5000 BCE, discoveries that gave the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, its name. Alloyed with tin, it yields bronze, harder than either parent metal, and bronze tools and weapons defined the Bronze Age across the ancient Near East, the Aegean and China. Copper conducts electricity better than any metal except silver, at a fraction of silver cost, and that property, combined with good ductility for drawing into wire and natural resistance to corrosion, made it the standard material of electrical wiring and motor windings from the birth of the electrical power industry in the late nineteenth century onward.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearWorked native copper ornaments are attested at Anatolian sites such as Cayonu from roughly the ninth millennium BCE; copper smelting from ore came later, from around the fifth millennium BCE. Primary UseElectrical wiring, motor windings and plumbing, chosen for high electrical conductivity, ductility and corrosion resistance. 2 Classification
Material Class Connections
Associated With
Brass is a copper alloy, copper being its base metal
Bronze is a copper alloy, copper being its base metal
Copper windings carry the induced current in electric generators.
Copper windings carry the current in electric motors.
Copper foil is etched to form the conductive traces of a printed circuit board.
Copper windings carry the current in nearly every practical motor design.
Source Electric Motor (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Technology: A World HistoryDaniel R. Headrick
Copper is drawn into electrical wire on wire-drawing machines.
In Field
Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Science Atlas: Copper, the same subject.
Sources
1. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954material-class sentenceQuote, material-class sentence
Copper is one of the first metals worked by humans, hammered into ornaments and tools from native deposits as early as 9000 BCE and smelted from ore by around 5000 BCE, discoveries that gave the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, its name.
2. Technology: A World History
Copper (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity.
History
It was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, c. 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 3500 BC.
View the Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.In Field: Electrical EngineeringView the Source Electric Motor (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: The Electric MotorView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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