Talk:Ceramic

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From the article: "A couple of decades ago, Toyota researched on producing a ceramic engine which can run at a temperature of over 6000°."

How many decades ago, and is that 6000°C or 6000°F? Kind of important. Bryan Derksen

Has to be 6000°F. 6000°C is up to solar temperatures. Edited to include the F. Don't know any more about it, although 6000F is still incredably high. I can only find a couple of materials with a melting point in that range or higher (tungsten (6010F), Diamond (6240F) and Hafnium carbide (6940F)). Even with HfC (which, might I add, I've never actaully heard of being used anywhere), that's stil close to the melting point, it would have to have pretty serious mechanical properties at that temp to be usable (not unknown, nickel superalloys can be used up to about 30°C from it's melting point, but damn rare), particularly considering that it's got to contain the explosions. Plus, to run an engine at over 6000°F your talking about buringing something exotic like oxy-acetalyne, or possible hydrolox. My suspicion is that the engine is a petrol engine made of ceramics that have a melting point over 6000°F, and not that it can run over 6000°F. Granted, my experience is in the electrical ceramics, and not the structural, so I'm going to leave it in, pending research. Syntax 05:13, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Right, bit of a major update there. Notable points:

1) My spelling sucks. Plus, I tend to the British spellings. 2) Traditional cermaic crafts are over at pottery. MatSci ceramics are here. Anyone forsee any problems with that? 3) I've tried to pitch the entry at the right level. Please holler if something is unclear - I'm too used to writing technical stuff on this. 4) Did I mention my spelling sucks?

Syntax 23:11, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] handicrafts: ceramics

An interesting article but I cannot understand why it has been included under handicrafts. More appropriately it should be under science of materials. I think the author is also puzzled by this classification. Pottery is also known as ceramics. It is simply that one word has an Old English origin and the other a Latinate origin. They both used to refer to the same craft/product and have done so for many centuries. See the OED. People working as artists with clay may choose to be known as potters, ceramists, ceramic artists, ceramicists or clay workers. Those who choose to identify as potters usually produce work that can be used in some way as well as appreciated for its intrinsic beauty. Potters also make one-off pieces. Nonetheless they may still choose to identify as potters. I suggest you refer to William Morris, Bernard Leach, Soetsu Yanagi and the Mingei movement in Japan which will give a philosophical background to this choice. Ceramic artists may either be people who have trained in ceramics, acquiring skills in both the making and designing of art works in clay (which may well be referential to the long and rich history of ceramics) or they can be artists like Grayson Perry who simply choose clay as one of several media in which they work. There is also a growing tendency to place ceramists under visual arts and design rather than art or pottery. I would suggest to the editors that there be entries under both categories (pottery and visual arts and design). Maybe artists/potters and their work could be listed under visual arts and design and practical/technical information under pottery with cross-referencing to each. Karen Weiss

[edit] negative resistance

These are devices that exhibit the unusual property of negative resistance. Once the voltage across the device reaches a certain threshold, there is a breakdown of the electrical structure in the vicinity of the grain boundaries, which results in its electrical resistance dropping from several mega-ohms down to a few hundred.

This confuses me. I understand that, as explained at negative resistance, negative resistance can be taken to mean merely that current is a decreasing function of voltage in a particular region of the current-voltage curve. But the above doesn't describe that. In fact it describes a situation where current in increasing greater than linearly with voltage. So if these materials really have negative resistance, the above does not describe their behavior. Josh Cherry 01:52, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

  • Or maybe I'm just confused. Does a given voltage actually have two possible values of voltage in some regions for these devices, with slopes of opposite signs? Josh Cherry 02:14, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • You're quite right, the resistance drops sharply at high voltage, but the resistance (both V/I and dV/dI) remains positive.

[edit] Why have the refractory and elec properties been removed?

I thought the content before 9 March 2005 was quite relevant

[edit] Sintering

There's a decent, but incomplete article on sintering that I tried to improve until I saw the excellent section of this article. Perhaps there should be a link and some moving of content?--Joel 22:56, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move Ceramics to Ceramic?

Should this article not be entitled Ceramic instead of Ceramics. Right now Ceramic redirects to Ceramics, but I think it should be the other way around --b4hand 20:34, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Agree. Ceramics seems to violate WP policy on plural article titles. And since I don't see any other discussion or reason for it, I'm being bold. -dmmaus 06:27, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh, darn, it's not that easy. The existing redirect blocks the renaming. I'm listing on WP:RM. -dmmaus 06:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Building construction vs. Pottery...

Can reach a better separation between the "Fine arts" subject of "Ceramics" and the building material? I have created a new but short page: "Ceramic material" for building stuff. Sorry about the I18N chars corrupt. I am fixing it now. -- Fplay 23:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It's more than just "building material". Ceramic materials are used for a lot of different things in engineering. At a glance, this article seems to be entirely about the engineering usage of the term, and not at all about the art form. In your new category scheme, this article, as-is, should be the "main article" for Category:Ceramic materials. Category:Ceramics does not currently have a main article as far as I know.--Srleffler 00:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move no consensus. Simply put, while the vote below was exactly balanced, votes are evil and the collective singular noun takes precedence here IMO. —Nightstallion (?) 08:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Votes may be evil, but you should have declared the result to be no consensus.--Srleffler 12:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough; changed that. —Nightstallion (?) 13:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Ceramics → Ceramic – plural to singular in accordance with WP:NAME. Redirect at Ceramic has history preventing simple move.

[edit] Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Support Straightforward naming policy. dmmaus 06:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Ceramics is a singular noun (at least in the USA), akin to Mathematics, not the plural of ceramic. You don't say "one ceramic, two ceramics". —Wahoofive (talk) 06:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per my comment in discussion. Since "ceramic" is the adjective and "ceramics" is the noun, I'd follow the example of Metallic (adj) redirecting to Metal (noun). If you disagree with my comment in discussion, please do reply and explain why! --Lox (t,c) 14:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Ceramic" is much more commonly an adjective, and Wikipedia policy discourages page names that are adjectives. "Ceramics" is correctly the singular noun for the art of production of ceramic materials. One can talk about "a ceramic", referring to a type of material, but this usage is not as common as the other two.--Srleffler 17:04, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per other comments. older ≠ wiser 23:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Ceramic is a category of noun called "collective singular", similar to Plastic, Furniture, Information, etc. While they are indeed singular, we do not use them in the context of "a [something]" but "a piece of [something]" or "an item of [something]." The OED supports this. Ebenbrooks 17:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support The page isn't about the art of pottery, and there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to ignore the OED as to usage of "ceramic" as a singular noun.Jamused 03:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment, likewise, I see no compelling reason to ignore either the Cambridge dictionary or the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I must admit, I'm slightly bemused that the dictionaries, from my reading, give different impressions. Perhaps someone could check my references and see if they read differently? --Lox (t,c) 08:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Actually, the Merriam-Webster online says that ceramic as a noun is "plural but singular in construction", in other words it's a collective singular as Ebenbrooks has pointed out. The American Heritage Online agrees with the distinction between "ceramic" the singular noun meaning the material or an object made of ceramic, and "ceramics" the plural noun used with singular verb meaning the art of making objects of ceramic. The Cambridge online dictionary is the Learner's, and presumably incomplete by design. Really, though, it's not a matter of majority rule among the dictionaries; the OED attests to the fact of ceramic used as a singular noun and cites examples going back to 1859. As I read it Wikipedia naming policy favors use of the singular unless the singular form doesn't exist, as with "scissors"; it does not propose a balancing test based on frequency of use, or contributors' sense of their regional dialects.Jamused 14:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: ceramic is correct as a collective singular noun, like "cereal". More pragmatically, it simplifies inline linking, since we can always write [[ceramic]]s for the plural. Jonathunder 10:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments
  • Comment
The term "ceramic" is
  • an adjective describing an object that has been made from clay and baked
The term "ceramics" is a
  • Singular noun that refers to production of ceramic materials
  • Plural noun that refers to ceramic objects
(References, Cambridge online dictionary, Merriam-Webster online dictionary)
When you vote, please bear in mind that should choose the word that describes the article best, since this is (in my opinion) not a simple of case of singular / plural nouns --Lox (t,c) 14:46, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Hmmm. Sorry, I didn't realise this point of usage. Here in Australia a ceramic (singular noun) is an object made of ceramic (also singular noun). My dictionary agrees with me. This is a bit like sport (British English) vs sports (American English). I'm happy for the proposed move to fail, if this point of usage is noted in the article. (I can add it myself.) -dmmaus 10:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Please check the edit I just made. I think American English also does have 'ceramic' as a noun for a type of ceramic material. e.g. Porcelain is a ceramic. Also, I assume all of the usages except the singular noun for objects made of ceramic are common to both American and Commonwealth English. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Srleffler (talk • contribs) 13:21, 16 January 2006.
      • I think the edits that the two of you have made are very good and clear this situation up very well! Thanks for your contributions! --Lox (t,c) 13:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Yeah, looks good now, thanks! -dmmaus 22:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • As I stated in the voting above, Ceramic is, indeed, a singular noun, but of the curious form called "collective singular". Collective singular nouns are nouns that describe either a plurality of objects or an undifferentiated, undefined quantity of something. Other nouns that fit this classification include Pottery, Information, Furniture, Clay, Plastic, and (in some uses) even Paper. The OED supports this use of Ceramic, and even American English uses it quite commonly. If you require citations, I can provide. Ebenbrooks 17:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Change and reasons From “Earthenware, which is made from potash, sand, feldspar and clay.” Why? Because it’s not To “Earthenware, which is often made from clay, quartz and feldspar.” Why? Because it is! Regards, Andy

Hello all, I've added an the ASTM definition of ceramics ... or at least ceramc article Regards, Andy

Hello 70.52.112.133 Thank you for your comments but cement is produced by the action of heat on raw materials, and therefore would comply with the listed definition. To quote from the wikipedia entry on Portland cement “ ...and similar materials are made by heating limestone (as source of calcium) with clay or sand (as source of silicon) and grinding the product (clinker), with a source of sulfate (most commonly gypsum). “

As an aside whilst the catergorisation of cement as a ceramic material is agreed by some it is not universal

Regards,

Andy


Hello again 70.52.112.133,

Whilst the final articles, such as concrete blocks, do not require the action of heat the manufacture of cement does, and therefore complies with the listed definition. Please see the wikipedia entry on Portland cement. Should you still not be happy with this please use the talk pages rather than changing the entry

Please have a look at http://www.cement.org.au/technical/cement_production.htm hwere you will see it noted that temperatures of up to 1450˚C are found in the kiln to produce cement Regards, Andy

[edit] ceramic

what is ceramic? i want to know...my teacher ask me and friends to do a research on ceramic


Hello 60.52.20.66,

Have you read the article to which these talk pages are attached? It contains a useful definition: “The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) defines a ceramic article as “an article having a glazed or unglazed body of crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or of glass, which body is produced from essentially inorganic, non-metallic substances and either is formed from a molten mass which solidifies on cooling, or is formed and simultaneously or subsequently matured by the action of the heat.” Rememebr if you do use this you need to give a proper citation

Regards, Andy

[edit] Brittle

Hi all, I've just re-read the article, and thought about "Historically, ceramic products have been hard, porous and brittle." Call me stupid but what ceramics are not hard & brittle? Regards, Andy

[edit] Ceramin?

Any chance some mention of what ceramin is can be added to the article? I don't know personally, but I have seen it mentioned in various places. Aristoi 19:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

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