Wedding occasions, special anniversaries… the most popular gift is gold. Good luck at the beginning of the year, many people choose to buy gold. What do you know about this metal?
Gold is a rare, dark yellow metal with a red luster that has its Latin name Aurum (symbol in the periodic table is Au). Pure gold is a relatively soft metal, easily malleable and stretched, good conductor of electricity and heat (but due to its high cost, it is rarely used).
When it comes to gold, we can’t help but mention this excellent reflective property, if coated on the surface of an object with a thin layer of gold, it can reflect up to 90% of high-density radiation or thermal radiation.
Gold is a transition metal that is soft, malleable, malleable, and unreactive with most chemicals. It is one of the precious metals in the world, behind its sparkling beauty are many interesting things not everyone knows.
First, when it comes to white gold, you need to know that this is a different metal from platinum, many of you mistakenly understand that platinum is white gold.
White gold is an alloy of gold and has at least one white metal, created by special metallurgical technology with many rigorous processes. In which gold is the main element accounting for high content in the alloy, usually 58.3% Au (14k) to 75% Au (18k).
Behind the yellow metal are many interesting things – (Photo: The Glamorai).
Gold can be found on all 7 continents. A total of 166,500 tons of gold have been mined in the history of the world, if they were cast into a cube that would have a side length of 20.5m. If the gold was melted down, it would fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
166,500 tons of gold to date is divided into 4 main components by application, of which gold is most commonly used in jewelry (50.5%).
It was then used for private investment (18.7%), then used for world government reserves (17.4%), and finally gold for industrial use (13.4%).
Technicians process liquid gold into gold bars – (Photo: REUTERS).
75% of the gold that people own has been mined since 1910. During the millennia before that, only 25% of all gold was found.
Archaeologists believe that mankind began to discover and use gold as early as 5,000 BC. Scientists estimate that 80% of the gold on Earth has yet to be found.
Many people think that gold is likely to lie very deep under the ground, so humans cannot mine it in the near future.
The first gold coins were used by people living in Lydia (part of Türkiye) around 560 BC. Legend has it that gold came from the Pactolus River, where King Midas lost the ability to turn objects into gold.
1. With 1 gram of gold, one can laminate it into a 165m long wire with the diameter of a human hair.
2. Because gold is a perfect conductor of electricity, it is used in many industrial applications. Many stories are circulated in folklore that Chinese emperors also used gold inlaid as thread to embroider in luxurious carpets or sew clothes for the palace.
3. Sports also use gold. In the past, people used real gold to make gold medals for championship athletes. Since 1912, the Olympic Committee stopped using 24K gold as medals. Gold medals today are only about 6 grams of gold.
Gold is also used in astronaut helmets – (Image: NASA).
4. Gold is still used today in the goggles and helmets of astronauts. Gold plays a useful role in reflecting infrared rays from the sun, helping to keep astronauts’ helmets from overheating.
5. About 13% of gold is used as coins put into national central banks or purchased from investors. The remainder is used for other purposes such as industrial and dental applications.
6. Statistics on gold reserves of governments and monetary organizations around the world in 2012 show that the US holds the most, followed by the IMF, then Germany, Italy, and France. As of May 2016, this order remains unchanged.
7. According to Business Insider, in 2016 China bought the most gold jewelry in the world. According to one report, South Asian countries import about 800 tons of gold each year and use about 600 tons of it to make jewelry.
8. South Africa is the country with the largest gold reserves in the world. Over the past 130 years, an average of 40% of the world’s gold has been mined in this country.
The largest gold ore still in existence today is being preserved in Las Vegas – (Photo: REUTERS).
9. The world’s largest gold ore ever found is “Welcome Stranger” , found in Victoria, Australia in 1869, weighing 71kg of which 65kg is pure gold.
10. The largest extant block of ore called “Hand of Faith” found in 1980 in Australia weighing 27kg is currently on display at the Golden Nugget Cassino in Las Vegas.
11. According to data from the World Gold Council (WGC), by the end of 2019, humanity has mined nearly 200,000 tons of gold. About 47% of that is used for jewelry, while only 21.6% is used for investment.
12. Gold has been found on all 7 continents worldwide. It is estimated that there is a total of 10 billion tons of gold in the oceans. However, it is so dilute that it cannot be extracted.
13. The oldest gold object discovered in Bulgaria. Research shows that humans have been processing metal with gold since 6,500 years ago.
14. Almost indestructible, gold is often melted down, refined, and reused. This means your gold ring may contain beads from ancient Rome.
15. Out of 92 natural elements, gold is only 58th in terms of rarity. The rarest elements on earth are platinum-based metals such as osmium, rhodium, and iridium.
16. Few people know, pure gold is so soft that it can be molded by hand.
17. Gold has been used by dentists for at least hundreds of years. An ancient book on dentistry first published in 1530 describes how dentists poured gold leaf into the cavities of patients’ teeth.
18. Some cases of rheumatoid arthritis are also injected with liquid gold to reduce inflammation.
19. Pure gold is not biologically irritating, which means it is safe in contact with the human skin and does not pose a health hazard. Therefore, they are often used for plating on products and architecture and are the preferred material for precious utensils.