#Nano#Nanotechnology is a science and technology that uses individual atoms and molecules to manufacture substances, and studies structure sizes in the range of 1 to 100 nanometers. Nanotechnology is a cutting-edge topic for scientists in the 21st century, and so far, a lot of scientific research results have been achieved. However, as early as the 4th century AD, the Romans had already mastered the approximate nanotechnology, which was also related to the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Han, who had a sentence in the "Liangzhou Ci" that attracted countless speculations from later generations, "grape wine luminous cup", which is related to this "luminous cup".
Nanotechnology
In addition, in the 9th century AD, there was an ancient book in China called "Tongdian", which contained a record of Du Huan's "Jing xingxing", which mentioned that there was a country in the far west of China called Fu Ling, "Liu Li Miao, the World Mobi", which is the ancient Great Qin, which is the Tang people's name for the Roman Empire.
What is the magic of the Roman Empire glassware recorded in classical Chinese literature? Why is it called "Mobi in the world"?
Lekugou Cup
In the exhibition area of the Roman period cultural relics of the British Museum, there is a cup that looks inconspicuous, which is about the same size as the modern ordinary wine glass, and it does not feel that there is anything special about it. Where there is light, the cup is a dark green and opaque glass, but the surface of the cup is covered with ingenious reliefs, but even so, in the British Museum full of rare treasures, this cup is not very outstanding (of course, it is now one of the treasures of the town hall in the Rome exhibition area).
The British Museum, the Lecugu Cup
Someone inadvertently shone light into the cup, a strange thing happened, the dark green cup in an instant emitted a strange purple red, the glass body appeared translucent, as if it was filled with red wine, the change of color made people have a sense of time and space conversion, as if returning to the original Wang Han saw this "luminous cup" feeling.
Modern technology has made it easy to identify the age of manufacture of this cup - from 290 to 325 AD, the exquisite relief pattern on the surface of the cup is a classic Greek mythological story, and the scene in the Iliad where the Thracian king Lekugu defeats dionysus, so the cup is named the Lycurgus Cup.
The jaw-dropping color change of this cup has aroused great interest among scientists, and in the early 20th century, there were many experts who painstakingly studied the material and optical mysteries of the Lekugu Cup, but limited by some science and technology at that time, although many ideas were put forward, but there was no convincing explanation.
It wasn't until the late 1980s, thanks to advances in electron microscopy technology, that scientists could finally zoom in at ultra-high magnification to observe the fragments of the Lekugu Cup. But the results of electron microscopy apparently startled materials scientists, who were surprised to find that this 1,700-year-old glass contained nanometallic particles only 50-100 nm in diameter!
Subsequently, the scientists used X-rays to further confirm that these particles were actually gold and silver alloys. Of course, a small amount of copper was also detected. What further puzzled the scientists was that the ratio of gold and silver in the nanometal particles was 3:7, which was much higher than the gold and silver ratio of the glass as a whole at 1:7!
Later, after a large number of scientists studied, the principle was clarified: gold is easier to reduce to metal than silver in the reduction reaction. The reduction reaction uniformly disperses the dissolved gold and silver ions into alloy nanoparticles, the gold part is responsible for selectively transmitting red light, while the halogen contained in the glass further strengthens this effect, and silver strongly scatters green light.
scientific research
Since then, the mystery of the material and optics of the Lekugou Cup has finally been revealed, but it has also brought more confusing problems, because the phenomenon that gold solutions can produce ruby red was first discovered in the 19th century; and selective transmission/reflection of specific wavelengths of light was not developed by NASA until the 20th century, and the filter glass for high-sensitivity satellite optical sensors was only mastered by a few high-tech special glass manufacturers; did the Romans master nanotechnology 1700 years ago?
But the Lekugu Cup makes people have to believe that as early as the second to third centuries AD, the Romans really have similar nanotechnology, but in terms of accuracy and other aspects can not be compared with modern technology, but before 1700, the Romans can master such a fine chemical processing technology, which also makes modern people need to re-examine and evaluate the ancient scientific and technological achievements.
Do you believe that the Lecugu Cup was made by the Romans using nanotechnology? Welcome to leave a message to discuss.