The next time you raise a nonrusty fork to your mouth at a meal, you should think of Harry Brearley, the English metallurgist credited with discovering the steel alloy we commonly call "stainless." Actually, stainless steel wasn't entirely Brearley's doing. Metallurgists for nearly a century before him had been toying with different metal mixes, trying to create a corrosion-resistant variety. But nobody succeeded to the extent that Brearley did when he stumbled on the recipe in 1913. He had been hired by a small arms manufacturer, whose gun barrels were wearing out too quickly, to develop an alloy that would better resist erosion (not corrosion). Brearley tried elements in different proportions in the metal until he created a steel containing 12.8 percent chromium and 0.24 percent carbon. How he figured out that his steel resisted corrosion isn't entirely verified, but the most plausible account has him running a routine test on the barrel that involved etching it with nitric acid. The metal stood up to the acid, and after it withstood other corrosives like lemon juice, Brearley realized it would be perfect for cutlery. He took his "rustless steel" to a local cutler, who dubbed it "stainless steel," and the name stuck.