History
Filings are mostly a byproduct of the grinding, filing, or milling of finished iron products, so their history largely tracks the development of iron. For the most part, they have been a waste product.
Iron filings have some utility as a component in primitive gunpowders. In such a fine powdered form, iron can burn, due to its increased surface area.
In modern electronics, some transformers have iron powder cores.
Read more about this topic: Iron Filings
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)
“In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)