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 called it cobalt due to certain magical allusions, as the word cobalt is derived from the word Kobold, which means elf in German.
Because in Germany, miners in the Middle Ages blamed mischievous goblins for their bad luck every time they found this mineral instead of silver. Today things have changed and cobalt is valued as much or more than silver, even though its name is the entry code to hell for many people.
This ferromagnetic metal can be said to be an open wound in the Democratic Republic of Congo, its place of exploitation and territory that has historically been punished for being a source of resources for decades, be it copper for infantry weapons, uranium for the production of atomic bombs or precious metal Metals such as silver and gold as well as diamonds.
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The Congo became an area of commercial gain since British Lieutenant Verney Lovett Cameron one day, after crossing the heart of the African darkness, reported in an article in The Times newspaper of January 7, 1876 that the interior of the Congo The land was of “unspeakable wealth”.
With his report, the British lieutenant provoked the entrepreneurial capitalists of the time and ensured that they could make their investments safely. From then on, the Congo would become a place of plunder. Today the trend continues to increase, as researcher and activist Siddharth Kara tells us in Red Cobalt (Captain Swing), because this mineral is as important as it is essential to our way of life.
Without going any further: Cobalt is necessary for cell phones, computers and other technical devices to function autonomously. For this reason, misery in the heart of the African continent is spreading at high speed. Siddharth Kara explains how foreign companies are displacing villagers after expropriating their land, relegating them to a miserable existence as artisanal miners where extracting red cobalt is their only livelihood. You won't get more than two dollars per bag. Add to that the fact that cobalt contains arsenic and things get ugly.
As the chronicles relate, copper miners in Germany fell ill when they found a blue mineral that they mistook for copper, but which did not contain copper. Although it had not yet been baptized, the mineral was cobalt and contained arsenic. Undoubtedly, the evil goblin of the Middle Ages continued to entangle the miners, not only confusing them, but also playing with their health by turning the mine into the entrance to Dante's Inferno, where on the door there is an inscription: “Give up everything.” Hope.”
The stone axe It is a section in which Montero Glezwith a desire for prose, makes his special attack on scientific reality to show that science and art are complementary forms of knowledge.
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