Silicon Metal

Description

Human history has often been defined by the materials that produced a change in technology: the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age. Are we by any chance living in the Silicon age?

Silicon is the second most abundant element on earth. Much of the earth’s crust is made of rock containing this semi-metal, and the sand on the beaches and in the soil is made mostly of tiny fragments of Silicon dioxide, or Silica. Humans have devised hundreds of ways to exploit this readily available element. Silicon is an important component of alloys, concrete, cement, and bricks used to build buildings, bridges, dams and roads.