Gold - How its made

Gold is pricey. I get that, but when all the steps involved in getting the gold out of the ground are lined up - as they are in this video - that priceiness makes a lot more sense.

There's another good tour through the process of extracting gold in the Nova special Hunting the Elements.

How do they do artificial diamonds?

I read an article recently about the possibility of using diamond as a building material. As I watch this video, though and see the massive amount of effort that goes into creating even these relatively tiny diamonds, I'm thinking that we're still a ways off from making any sorts of floors or windows from this carbon allotrope anytime soon.

I love the use of concentrated hydrochloric acid to get rid of the metal slug around the final - and hopeful - diamond.

How It's Made - Plate Glass

The How It's Made series is beautiful, giving us a glimpse into the manufacturing process for so many industrial - and frivolous materials. Here we get to see plate glass being made in the tin float process.

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An 180-ton furnace...a production line capable of producing 700 tons of glass everyday for ten years...furnaces heating to 1600 degrees centigrade (funny Europeans)...the scale of this float glass factory is stunning.

There are so many mind-blowing images in this video..

• the heating at 3:25
• the giant flames at 3:35
• the view into the tin bath at 4:30
• the mass scoring at 6:10
• the massive warehouse at 7:10

I really want to go to a glass factory. I'm just saying.

Thanks to Pilkington for showing us this glimpse into their factory.

How It's Made: Glass Christmas Ornaments

Much of this video isn't too big on the materials science focus - ooh, glitter being glued on - but the aspect of the glass ornaments not being cooled down too quickly so they don't shatter is a nice application of the thermal expansion of glass and how that can affect its strength.

Plus there's some great chemistry in the inside silvering of the ornaments.

How It's Made: Correlle Dishes

Corelle plates are pretty cool products.

They don't cost much of anything, and they're spectacularly durable, wonderful examples of tempered glass  and the strength that can come from stresses within a product.

In the summer workshops we contrast Corelle plates to other ceramic plates, and the Corelle plates are marvelously strong in comparison. In this video, too, we see that they're even tested for strength before ever leaving the factory.

If you're looking to destroy a few of your own, make sure to double bag them in Ziploc (or an off brand - I like Target's bags) because they shatter into thousands of tiny, razor-sharp shards. And, don't bother with buying them anywhere other than at a Goodwill or a flea market. They're way cheaper there.

How It's Made: the 2 Euro Coin

These two-euro coins are far more interesting than are the coins that we use in the United States. Yes, our coins are partially sandwiched, but we lack the two-part, ringed coins that are used in many countries in Europe. The rings just make the coins way cooler.

They also, of course, make the coins far trickier to manufacture, a process shown in depth in this video.