Seven Elements That Have Changed the World (40 page)

72.
Mining titanium in the midst of a beautiful lakescape. Rio Tinto’s ilmenite mine, Lake Tio, Quebec.

73.
Glassmaking in Venice as depicted by Biringuccio in 1540 in the first printed book on metallurgy.

74.
Breaking out of the herd: four of my glass elephants. Careful. They break! (2012)

75.
Glass blowing in Murano. (2010)

76.
A virtual infinity: the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 2012.

77.
Glass petrol pump lights: silicon meets carbon.

78.
Paxton’s magnificent Great Conservatory at Chatsworth. A dry-run for the mighty Crystal Palace.

79.
A mighty palace made not for royalty but to showcase technology: the Crystal Palace. The two men on top are iron-fitters, London, 1851.

80.
‘If they had seen what we see.’ Mt Palomar Observatory, 1959.

81.
Sun in Palermo. Solar photovoltaic plant of AES Solar Italia.

82.
Foresight of a genius. Insight of his works: Leonardo Da Vinci’s solar machine.

83.
Computing in 1965. Overwhelming in power and size: the IBM 1130.

84.
Fit for a museum of modern art: the first transistor of Nobel Prize-winning Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain.