The Cobalt Goblins and Other Stories from Hell | Science

In the 1730s, Swedish physician Georg Brandt (1694-1768) discovered cobalt as the first substance other than iron to be attracted to a magnet. And Brandt named it cobalt because of some magical references, since the word cobalt derives from the word kobold (coboldo) which in German means elf.

Because in Germany, medieval miners blamed mischievous elves for their bad luck every time they found this mineral instead of silver. Today, things have changed and cobalt is valued as much, if not more, than silver, even though, for many people, its name is the code for entry into hell.

We can say that this ferromagnetic metal is an open wound in the Democratic Republic of Congo, its place of exploitation and its territory historically punished for having been a source of resources for decades, whether it is copper for weapons. infantry, uranium to make nuclear bombs or precious metals. .such as silver and gold, as well as diamonds.

The Congo has become a zone of commercial profits since one day, British lieutenant Verney Lovett Cameron, after crossing the heart of African darkness, reported it in an article in the newspaper The temperature on January 7, 1876, that the interior of the country was “indescribably rich”.

With his report, the British lieutenant provoked the entrepreneurial capitalists of the time and arranged for them to realize their investments safely. From then on, the Congo would become a place of pillage. Today, the trend continues to grow, as researcher and activist Siddharth Kara tells us in cobalt red (Captain Swing), because this mineral is so important that it is essential to our way of life.

Without going any further, cobalt is necessary for the autonomous operation of cell phones, computers and other technological gadgets. Thus, poverty in the heart of the African continent is spreading at high speed. Siddharth Kara explains how foreign companies displace villagers after expropriating their land and relegate them to a miserable existence as artisanal miners where mining red cobalt is their only way of life. They don’t get more than two dollars per bag. If we add to this that cobalt contains arsenic, then things get worse.

As the chronicles tell it, copper miners in Germany became ill when they found a blue mineral that they mistook for copper but which did not contain copper. Although it had not yet been named, the mineral was cobalt and what it contained was arsenic. Undoubtedly, the evil goblin of the Middle Ages continued to entangle and not only confuse the miners, but also played with their health, turning the mine into the entrance to Dante’s Hell where an inscription on the door says, “Abandon all hope.” .

The stone ax This is a section where Montero Glezwith a desire for prose, exercises its particular seat on scientific reality to demonstrate that science and art are complementary forms of knowledge.

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