GineersNow Engineering Magazine November 2016 Issue No 009

25 AWESOME THINGS YOU
DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT GOLD
by Cielo Panda
Gold was used as a currency of choice in the past, but even though it isn’t used as currency anymore, it still
retains its value. Here are 25 awesome things you didn’t know about gold.
Gold is one of the substances
that are equated with
extreme value. Have you
ever wondered why? Why is
gold considered one of the
most valuable metals in the
universe? One of the reasons
could be because it’s one of
the rarest metals on earth,
but there are other metals
that are even rarer. So what’s
the deal? Well, out of all
the rare elements like silver
and platinum, gold has one
distinction that makes it
stand out—it’s yellowish.
Also it doesn’t react with
other elements so it doesn’t
tarnish. All the others are
grayish. Gold was used as a
currency of choice in the past,
but even though it isn’t used
as currency anymore, it still
retains its value. Here are 25
awesome things you didn’t
know about gold.
#25 A ton of old cell phones
will give you more gold than 1
ton of gold ore
#24 If all the gold in the
ocean was taken out, there
would be enough for every
person on Earth to have 9
pounds.
#23 Hungarian chemist
George de Hevesy melted
down the gold Nobel Prizes
of German physicists Max
von Laue and James Frank
so that Nazis wouldn’t
confiscated them. They were
recast after the war.
#22 Have you ever
wondered why sailors often
wore gold earrings? It’s so
that if they drowned and
washed up on the beach,
the earrings would serve
as payment for a proper
Christian burial.
#21 The Olympic gold
medal is only 1% gold.
#20 In Dubai, there are
ATM’s that dispense gold
bars!
#19 Most of the gold that
is found in the Earth’s crust
was placed there by asteroid
strikes.
#18 Most of the gold on
Earth is in the core because
it sank to the center while
the Earth was being formed.
#17 In 1859, gold miners in
the Rocky Mountains woke
up at 1am to eat breakfast
because the aurora was so
bright that they thought it
was morning.
#16 Did you know that
ice cream testers use gold
spoons so that they would
avoid the after taste of using
regular spoons?
#15 Roman politician Gaius
Gracchus has a bounty put
on his head of its weight in
gold. The head was delivered
but the bounty wasn’t paid
because the person who
captured the head filled it
with lead.
#14 Did you know that
aluminium used to be the
most valuable metal on
Earth? Rich people would
eat using aluminium cutlery
will poorer people would use
gold!
#13 Mansa Musa, the ruler
of the Mali Empire, spent
so much gold in Egypt that
he devalued it and almost
destroyed the economy.
#12 According to list25,
Chinese prisoners are forced
to mine gold in the game
World of Warcraft. There are
sources that report nearly
100,000 virtual gold farmers
throughout the country.
#11 LEGO used to give a
25.65 gram brick of gold to its
employees who completed
25 years of service.
#10 Did you know that gold
is actually edible?
#9 Gold can be found on
every continent.
#8 Gold is usually forcibly
extracted from water during
earthquakes because of the
pressure deep within the
Earth’s crust.
#7 The leaves of the
eucalyptus tree have been
found to contain some
traces of gold.
#6 All the gold ever mined
in human history can fill
up three Olympic-sized
swimming pools.
#5 Almost half of the gold
came from Witwatersrand,
South Africa.
#4 The fear of gold is called
Aurophobia.
#3 Indian housewives hold
almost 11% of the world’s
gold. That’s more than the
US, Germany, Switzerland
and the International
Monetary Fund combined.
#2 The largest gold bar in
the world weighs 250 kg or
551 pounds.
#1 Your body contains
around .2mg of gold which
is mostly found in your
bloodstream.
Photo by MIT
Photo by Envirotect
NOVEMBER 2016
Mining Engineering and Its Importance
31