what is the Mohs Hardness Scale?

Question

who invented it and when?
why was it invented?
what major affect does it have on minerals today?

Answer 1

"The Mohs scale of mineral hardness characterizes the scratch resistance of various minerals through the ability of a harder material to scratch a softer material. It was created in 1812 by the German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs and is one of several definitions of hardness in materials science.

Mohs based the scale on ten minerals that are all readily available. As the hardest known naturally occurring substance, diamond is at the top of the scale. The hardness of a material is measured against the scale by finding the hardest material that the given material can scratch, and/or the softest material that can scratch the given material. For example, if some material is scratched by apatite but not by fluorite, its hardness on the Mohs scale is 4.5.

The Mohs scale is a purely ordinal scale. For example, corundum (9) is twice as hard as topaz (8), but diamond (10) almost four times as hard as corundum. The table below shows comparison with absolute hardness measured by a sclerometer."

Answer 2

Friedrich Mohs

Answer 3

Moh invented it, not sure exactly when, it was invented so that geologists could identify minerals easily just by checking how "hard" they were. the hardest thing on the mohs scale is diamond.

Answer 4

Why not just remember the minerals themselves? Why remember two things when one will suffice? Like the other answerer said, he can remember the mnemonic but not the nerves which is the real point. Same with the minerals. by the way, he left out quartz It's only 10 items...just remember THEM. You remember people's phone numbers all the time, so it's not hard to remember 10 items in order.

Answer 5

1945

Answer 6

That question should be in the Earth Sciences & Geology section. This is the Astronomy & Space section.