What is so special about gold?

What is so special about gold?

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All through the years, we have been fascinated by this special material, beautiful, rear, desirable and valuable. A one of kind material. That invokes the same reaction and appeal across deffrent culture and time in the history of humans.
This metal has caused the rise and fall of empires and great men through history. A one of a kind metal that seem to have immortality in some ways.
Enough of the praises, gold was valuable even when it was useless!

When gold was useless

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Silver is a very useful metal and if you look around your surrounding right now, you may see many items made from silver because of its strength. Copper is used as a conductor of electricity in many electronic devices, platinum is very rare with great physical characteristics like resistance to very high temperature.
Gold is not as rare as platinum, it is too soft to be used on its own, too expensive to work as a conductor of electricity. Even when gold was only used for it's ornamental value and still needed to be mixed with other metals for it to accomplish this function well. Gold was still valued because it can almost last forever, unaffected by the elements, and some corrosive substances. Still looking good and shiny after being stored for a thousand years.
Gold was seen as a symbol of power, divinity and wealth. With no practical application at that time, Proving that there is value in scarcity.

_{Gold: a symbol of immortality}

Still Valuable Today

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Combining gold's rarity and other properties like its beauty and durability is what makes gold this valuable and a good security.
Excluding it's function as the backbone for many currencies and it's ornamental value.

Gold is a superconductor
it works better than copper and is used in making computers more efficient, with the only disadvantage being that it also makes them very expensive.

Gold for protection
it is used in spacesuits and equipment to protect them from the harsh environment out there. Gold helps to block radiation and it's reflective properties keep the astronaut cool.
It's none corrosive properties makes it prevent computer parts from rusting.

Reacts with some proteins
it is used in medicine to detect cancerous cells and can fight prostate cancer and ease arthritis. A lot of gold is used in dentistry and recently we have a coronavirus test that uses gold.

As air cleaner
some manufacturer use gold in their catalytic converters to cut down the amount of poisonous gass that comes out.

The Chemistry of Gold

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Classification	Transition metal
Element Name	[Au] Aurum
Atomic Number	79
Atomic mass	196.96
Density	19.3g per cubic Cm
Melting point	1064°C

Conclusion

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Gold is more than a beautiful metal, it is also a very useful one. With simbolizm in religion, economic value, with application in medicine and other technology, gold is truly a metal with a special appeal.

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