By Cyril Anderson

“Indeed, we sent Our Messengers with the clear signs, and we sent down with them the Book and the Balance so that men might uphold justice.  And We sent down iron, wherein is great might, and many uses for mankind, and so that God might know who helps Him, and His Messengers, in the Unseen.”  Qu’ran, 57:25.

 In Qu’ran, in surah al-hadid it is mentioned that one of the signs of God is iron, in which there are many uses for mankind.  Indeed, there are many uses for this metal.

 Iron is used as a key component of steel, used to make all sorts of things, including bridges, buildings, ships, and tools.  Steel is iron fortified with carbon to make the metal less brittle than it is alone.  Iron is the bulk metal used most in a modern industrial society.  (98 million tons of steel were produced in the United States in 1993)

 In history, a new age in human civilization was reached with the capability to use iron – the Iron Age.  Iron and steel weapons are stronger than the bronze and stone weapons and tools used beforehand.  Iron is also highly useful for its magnetic properties, which enable a number of crucial practical applications

 These magnetic properties have been used for millennia for navigation, because the magnetism of iron becomes naturally aligned with the natural magnetism of the earth as a whole.  Magnetized iron is useful still in compasses for simple local navigation in camping and hiking, for example – the iron, magnetized by the earth’s magnetic field, will naturally align with the Earth’s magnetic field lines, so that one end of a bar of iron will point approximately north.  In a compass, a thin piece of iron is used, which rotates easily in the earth’s magnetic field to point north, helping to give a sense of direction.  Detailed study of such effects allow the measurement of the smaller local variations of the Earth’s field, such as magnetic inclination (angle between the magnetic field and the horizontal) and declination (the angular difference between true north (direction toward the Northern contact between the earth’s rotational axis and the Earth) and magnetic north).  The study of such effects allows a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms and dynamics of terrestrial magnetism.

 It is believed that the earth’s magnetic field is itself produced by iron, through a “dynamo effect” of circulating currents of molten iron in the earth’s mantle.  Iron is believed to comprise the largest part of the interior of the earth.

 This magnetic field protects the earth from the “solar wind” of charged particles shed from the sun by deflecting these particles as if a sort of “force field.”  Otherwise, life would not be able to exist well, as the atmosphere would be in continual danger of being blown off an ionized.  The interaction of these charged solar particles with the upper atmosphere in the Northern and Southern latitudes produces the spectacle of the aurora borealis and aurora australis, two of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring of natural phenomena.

 Iron metal, because of its magnetic properties is used as a “core” to strengthen and amplify the effects of electromagnetic induction, where a changing magnetic field produces an electric current, and vice-versa.  This is used in a number of electro-magnetic devices on which modern civilization depends, including generators, amplifiers, motors, transformers, speakers, and microphones. 

 Iron plays a part as well in biological processes.  Hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells, carries oxygen from the lungs to the body’s trillions of cells, allowing them to function.  At the center of every hemoglobin molecule is an iron atom to which the oxygen atoms bind so that they can be carried to the cells.

 Iron is also significant from a nuclear physics standpoint in that the iron nuclei represents the peak of the nuclear mass binding energy per nucleon curve.  Put simply, it marks the end point of typical nuclear fusion of the sort in typical stars.  In fusion, two light nuclei come together at high speed, and “fuse” into a new, heavier nucleus, giving off energy in the process.  Light stars burn hydrogen fuel to make helium, while heavier stars fuse heavier elements.  But the end product in the heaviest stars is iron, because to fuse any nucleus heavier than iron takes more energy in than is gotten out, and as a result, such fusion reactions don’t tend to happen, except, it is theorized, in extraordinary bursts of energy such as supernovae explosions.  Very massive stars, it is theorized, end up with dense cores of iron.  It is believed that iron meteorites may be the former cores of dead stars.