BILINGÜÍSMO 6º: ELECTRUM: LISTENING MATTER AUDIO 41 TEXT

Woman: People often think that science and art are such different subject matters that they are not connected at all.

But there are many ways that artists use scientific principles to improve their art:

Understanding mixtures is just one example.

Man: Can you give us an example of how understanding mixtures is important in art?

Woman: Well. there are many examples such as:

·         When mixing colours together or

·         When producing an art material.

But one area which I think is very beautiful is the use of alloys.

Man: We are learning in class that an alloy is a mixture of metals. We have seen that when you mix certain metals together you create a new set of specific properties. For example being able to make a resistant metal that is also light is important in engineering such as building or making tools.

Woman: Well many ancient civilizations also used alloys not only to make tools but for artistic purposes.

Man: Can you give us some examples?

Woman:

·         adding copper to silver increases the strength of silver this is known as sterling silver. Sterling silver was used to make jewelry, plates and cutlery.

·         The ancient Egyptians also added metals to gold to change its color. They added copper to produce a red gold and iron to produce a burgundy gold.

·         Electrum is a natural alloy made up of gold and silver and small amounts of other metals.Electrum was often used to make coins.

Man:  I supposed that people could mixed gold with other metals to trick people. They could sell it as pure gold when in fact it wasn´t.

Woman: oh yes it happens a lot. So much so that scientific experiments prevented to check the purity of gold to make sure that it wasn´t really an alloy after all.

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