|
|
Friedrich Mohs |
Friedrich Mohs was a German geologist who studied minerals (a mineralogist!). He lived from 1773 to 1839. He moved to Austria in 1801 where he found a job identifying minerals in a collection owned by a wealthy banker. He used physical characteristics of the crystals to decide what they were. One of the characteristics he used to identify minerals was hardness. He knew that some of the minerals could scratch other minerals. He decided that if a mineral could make a scratch on another, it must be harder than the mineral that was scratched. He found that all other minerals could scratch the mineral talc, so it must be very soft. He also found that diamonds were so hard that they could scratch every other mineral and could not be scratched by anything. Even today, we have not been able to find a mineral that is harder than a diamond. About a decade later, Friedrich created a scale from one to ten to describe mineral hardness while he was a professor at an Austrian University. He assigned harder minerals larger numbers as they could scratch any mineral with a smaller number. Talc, the softest mineral, he assigned to one, the smallest number on the scale. Diamond, the hardest mineral, he assigned to 10, the largest number on the scale. Perhaps the wealthy Austrian banker would not have been happy if he had known Friedrich was scratching the minerals in his collection, but geologists around the world appreciate Mohs. Geologists still rely on Friedrich's scale today! We call it Mohs Hardness Scale. |
Friedrich Mohs was a German scientist who studied minerals. He lived from 1773 to 1839. He moved to Austria in 1801 where he found a job identifying minerals in a collection that belonged to a wealthy banker. He used physical characteristics of the crystals to decide what they were. One of the characteristics he used to identify minerals was hardness. He knew that some of the minerals could scratch others and that if a mineral could make a scratch on another, it must be harder than the mineral that was scratched. He found that all minerals could scratch the mineral talc, so it must be very soft. He also found that diamonds were so hard that no other minerals could scratch them. About a decade later, Friedrich created a scale from one to 10 to describe mineral hardness. He gave harder minerals larger numbers and softer minerals smaller numbers. Talc, the softest mineral, he assigned to one, the smallest number on the scale. Diamond, the hardest mineral, he assigned to 10, the largest number on the scale. Was Friedrich making scratches on the Austrian banker's expensive minerals? The banker probably wouldn't have liked that! But geologists around the world do appreciate what Friedrich did. Geologists still rely on his scale today! We call it Mohs Hardness Scale. |
Friedrich Mohs was a scientist who lived about 200 years ago in Europe. Friedrich's liked to identify minerals. He looked at a crystal closely and checked its hardness to decide which kind it was. He knew that some minerals could scratch other minerals. If one mineral can scratch another, it must be harder than the mineral it scratched. He found that diamonds are the hardest mineral because they can scratch any other. Friedrich made a scale from one to ten to describe the hardness of different minerals. He gave harder minerals larger numbers and softer minerals smaller numbers. We still use Friedrich's scale today! It's called Mohs Hardness Scale. |
Last modified May 6, 2003 by the Windows Team
The source of this material is Windows to the Universe, at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/ at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). © The Regents of the University of Michigan. All Rights Reserved. Site policies and disclaimer
