Attempting to scratch a surface to test a material is a very old technique. The first scientific attempt to quantify materials by scratch tests was by mineralogist Friedrich Mohs in 1812 (see Mohs scale). The Mohs scale is based on relative scratch hardness of different materials; with talc assigned a value of 1 and diamond assigned a value of 10. Mohs's scale had two limitations: it was not linear, and most modern abrasives fall between 9 and 10. ; so, later scientists attempted to increase resolution at the harder end of the scale.