I recently encountered these two videos which gave good visual demonstrations of things I’d read about but not understood as well as I wanted to.
The first video demonstrates the lime-cycle. I’ve tried to wrap my head around this numerous times but had a hard time doing so without a background in chemistry. This video demonstrating Roman concrete shows how limestone is converted into hydrated lime and clears up, amongst other things, why a fluffy dry powder is called “hydrated”:
The second video shows the different stages, layers and tools of a lime plaster applied onto a cob wall. Lets just say that a hurling trowel is now on my shopping list!