Georgius Agricola
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Georgius Agricola was a German Renaissance humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. Born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire, he was broadly edu
Georgius Agricola (fictive 1927 portrait)
A water mill used for raising ore
Fire-setting underground
De re metallica
Bismuth
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Bismuth is a chemical element; it has symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic
Georgius Agricola
…for the technical terms used in the Latin text. Modern words that derive from the work include fluorspar (from which was later named fluorine) and bismuth. In another example, believing the black rock of the Schloßberg at Stolpen to be the same as Pliny the Elder's basalt, Agricola applied this name to…
Bismuth crystals and 1cm 3 cube
Left: A bismuth hopper crystal is exhibiting the stairstep crystal structure and iridescent colors, which are produced by interference of light within the oxide film on its surface. Right: a 1 cm3 cube of unoxidised bismuth metal
Bismuth(III) oxide powder
Bismite mineral