9781422279496

Silicon: CHAPTER 1

Discovery and History

S ilicon is the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust. It makes up the majority of the beach sand in the world. We use it in soaps, in glass, and in comput- ers. Historically, humans have been using, and even manipulating, silicon for thousands of years. Some of the very first tools made by early humans were made of flint , a form of the mineral quartz. Quartz is composed of atoms of silicon and oxygen. Flint easily breaks into thin shards or splinters, making it very useful to early humans during the Stone Age as tools or cutting instruments, or to start a fire. Early civilizations eventually learned to turn sand, which is composed primarily of silicon, into glass by heating it. Silicon was a vital piece of early human civilizations, but it did not have a name.

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