THE MERITOCRATIC ASCENDANCE OF CAST IRON: FROM MAGIC TO VIRTUAL CAST IRON Doru M. Stefanescu The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA Copyright Ó 2019 American Foundry Society https://doi.org/10.1007/s40962-019-00347-8 Abstract Unlike in a democracy where selection criteria serve the concept of political equality between the members of the category, meritocracy means equality of opportunity rather than outcome.The US economy was built on meritocratic principles. The world of sports is meritocratic, as building a winning culture is crucial, and so is the world of mate- rials. Cast iron, a material with impressive longevity going back to at least the 5th century BC, survived in the mate- rials competition based on merit. A review of these merits is one of the objectives of this lecture. However, as developing the material properties that kept cast iron competitive is rooted in knowledge, a short escapade in the history of knowledge pertinent to cast iron will also be attempted. The US iron casting production has continu- ously decreased since 1990. A discussion of the effect of generation and transfer of knowledge and of ill-advised and debatable environmental constrains is provided. Keywords: Hoyt lecture, cast-iron research, environment impact Introduction The first AFS Charles Hoyt Annual Lecture honoring Charles Edgard Hoyt, a practicing foundryman and instructor at Michigan State University, was delivered in 1947 by J.T. MacKenzie. 1 Thus, this will be the 71st consecutive lecture in this series. If in addition to this momentous historical tradition one considers the list of speakers, a veritable Who’s Who in metalcasting, it becomes self-evident that to become a member of this select club is a magnificent honor, an honor that comes with a heavy burden, as to match or even to come close to the wisdom conveyed by such admirable predecessors over these 71 years is a merciless task. It is a burden that must be approached with reverence and humility, as success is not guaranteed. Adding to the weight, this will be only the seventh time that this honor was bestowed upon an academic. The choice of the subject of this lecture comes from my love of life and of cast iron. As an academic who has spent most of his life between the arms of dendrites, I consider myself to be in the business of understanding and still struggle to comprehend cast iron and the world in which I live. A breakdown by topics of the previous Hoyt lectures reveals that aluminum, silicon, and history were each the subject of a lecture, while cast iron was not, 2 maybe another good reason for the choice of subject. However, first perhaps, the title needs some explanation. Unlike democracy that aims to achieve political equality between the members of the category, meritocracy means equality of opportunity rather than outcome. It rewards individuals and entities whose progress is based on ability and talent rather than on class privilege or wealth. At the opposite end, we have what I will reference as ‘‘politoc- racy,’’ a term that I coined, where selection criteria are grounded in some ideology, are politically motivated, and designed to benefit the political class and other privileged groups. It stands to reason that meritocracy must be based on truth and knowledge. Politocracy, on the other hand, relies on patchy knowledge or downright ignorance, and its This is an expanded and updated version of the paper that includes information presented during the Hoyt Lecture at the 123rd Metal- casting Congress and published in 2019 AFS Transactions. International Journal of Metalcasting