>>12362787>alloy just has in between properties of each element?this is definitely not true. when you form steel, you get an alloy that is both stronger than carbon and iron independently. its strength is not "between" the two.
>He saying (for example) is brass just copper and zinc mixed together or does it become a new thing altogether.they become a new thing. the crystal structure of an alloy is different from the pure metals.
think about it this way: you have a box. in the box you pack as many tennis balls as possible. there is an optimal way that these tennis balls are packed, and this is the "crystal structure" for tennis balls. if you repeat the process with golf balls, they will also have their own crystal structure.
when you combine tennis and golf balls into a box, the crystal structure isn't that of tennis or golf balls, but rather a new one that is the optimal configuration of the two.
now think of tennis and golf balls as copper and zinc atoms. the alloy does not have the same structure as the two materials on their own. properties largely come from crystal structure, so an alloy's properties can be quite different from the individual elements, depending on how much the mixture changes the structure.
there are other things that go into it of course but this is a high-level overview.
