Gold !!!

>>8010654
>historically
The first Lewis acid catalyzed enantioselective aldol reaction was carried out using an Au(I) based catalyst. (Hayashi-Ito aldol)

The above is hardly ever used. Other methods have better scope (some are catalytic in chiral material, others are not).

Most gold catalysis is unlike the Hayashi-Ito, most uses Au salts as pi-acids.

>>8010654
Its color and other properties are due to relativistic effects.

>>8010654
It will be worth the lint on my balls when elemental transmutation comes in to practice.

>>8010654
Used in optical metamaterials because it's very high conductivity increases the optical response of microstructures.

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I appreciate the comments, let's keep this thread alive because imo gold is something that we can use in many things and with very high importance towards science, economical and even political environment !

>>8010654
Someone has an essay about gold to write i see

nop :P it's just personal interest towards gold, i find it fascinating and very useful... or even destructive

>>8010819
>destructive
lel, using cyanide to obtain gold from mining operations

>>8010654
>and always will be

false

>>8010747
Already exists, is prohibitively expensive

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Copper will have the same price when fossil fuels will run out.

Well, let's say that any metal will have a price proportional to how useful it is in electric motors, cables, batteries, nuclear reactors, etc.

Gypsies already know this.

>>8010841
>Well, let's say that any metal will have a price proportional to how useful it is in electric motors, cables, batteries, nuclear reactors, etc.

That's not how prices work. SUPPLY and demand, senpai.

>>8010872

I know. My point is that its current price is inflated because of the jewellery use. When fossil fuels will end, the almost-collapse of the western societies will force us to abandon "beautiful" metals and value only useful properties.

>>8010839
he didnt say it didnt exist, he said "when it comes into practise", i.e. "when it becomes viable"

bump, the more info the better !

>>8010841
Finally a better answer.
Lol at gold.
Copper owns us.

>>8011519
The only reason we're using copper instead of gold is that it's much more common and as such much cheaper.

>>8010654
There is enough gold in the Earth's core to cover the entire planet in 12 feet of gold.

>>8010654
The reason why we find gold attractive is because it's the color of urine. Oir ancestors, same as dogs, use urine to mark their teritory. It's a form of status.

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you can extract gold with sugar (α-cyclodextrin)

>>8011677
How much gold could you extract from murrifats that way?

>>8011683
funny you say that they are going to start mining sewage for gold and silver. supposed to be something like a million dollars per 100,000 people per year.

Is there a way to screw someone's gold stash by injecting an additional proton into each atom's nucleus?

>tfw they open their vault to get to their gold, only to be drowned by a tidal wave of mercury

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Oh hai guys

>>8012172
just get a syringe full of protons
retard

>>8012191
Not now silver

>>8012198
Are you kidding? Protons are really hard to get into an atomic nucleus. There's no practical way to inject them into gold nuclei. If you pushed them hard enough to get them in there, and didn't miss, they'd probably knock something as heavy as gold right apart.

>>8012172
The trick is, you put them in as neutrons, and then they'll decay into protons on their own.

The most practical way to produce that large a number of neutrons is deuterium-deuterium fusion, which can be accomplished in a short time with a fairly straightforward process involving a relatively small fission primary.

Why is gold so valuable? I've always wondered this.

>>8010654
gold can engage in non-covalent interactions with other metals with the same strength as a strong hydrogen bond

gold has the highest electronegativity of all the metals. It also has an unusually high spin-orbit coupling constant.

a large proprortion of gold on the earths surface was delivered by asteroid impacts, since gold that was initially on earth sank to the core when the earth was still molten.

Gold complexes are often luminescent and can change their emissions based on exposure to different environmental conditions.

>>8012289
- looks nice (almost all metals are just various shades of more or less reflective grey)
- won't corrode or react with almost anything
- is a great electrical conductor
- it's hard to find and there's a very limited quantity of it around

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>>8010654
people have been (unwittingly) using gold nanoparticles for thousands of years in things like stained glass windows.

Michael Faraday was the first person to describe the synthesis of gold nanoparticles

When using scanning electron microscopy, it is common to coat soft biological specimens in a layer of gold to aid in the contrast

does not dissolve in either hcl or hno3 but when these two acids are mixed to make aqua regia, gold dissolves to give tetrachloroauric acid

>>8010654
>gold
>most valuable

lol You can't eat, drink, or breathe gold and except to live on it, OP. Food, water, and air are the most valuable things.

Even that aside, copper and aluminum are the metals that are most valuable.

>>8012289
It's pretty. It doesn't oxidize or otherwise lose its luster through spontaneous chemical changes. It's easy to work into delicate shapes and thin coatings, even with very primitive technology. There's not much of it available in the Earth's crust.

In other words, you can't have too much gold. If it were a common metal, we'd use it for all sorts of stuff.

So it was a natural choice of material for jewelry and other fine gifts to influence the most important, powerful, and desirable people, which made it an even more important trade good.

As a trade good, it was also compact, imperishable, able to be divided and recombined, and purifiable. This made it very convenient for coinage. So it was became the most valuable, portable kind of money (scarcer metals weren't distinguished until quite recently).

As money, it gained more value by virtue of being money ("monetary surplus"). In other words, you wanted it more because you knew anyone else would take it in trade for anything available for trade. Nobody puts out goods for sale or hires out for work, but says, "No thanks, I've got enough money. What else have you got?"

Now gold's value is unstable. It's not really money anymore, but it sort of is. It's not clear if governments should be selling their stockpiles or hoarding more. Will it be money again? With all the sophisticated fabrication technology and materials today, will people stop caring about gold for ornaments? Will advanced mining or nuclear science flood the market with more gold than anyone wants? So gold's value is currently largely speculative: the price of gold reflects what people are betting other people will think it's worth tomorrow, with little connection to use value, consumption rate, or production options.

Can someone explain to me why gold is so much "better" than silver? It seems to me that they have similar properties yet gold is like 60 times more expensive.

>>8012599
Mostly, it's that gold is much rarer.

However, it's also true that silver tarnishes and is harder to work.

>>8010747
>elemental transmutation
We can do that. Easily turn Platin into Gold!

>>8012599
Silver forms an oxide layer in air and tarnishes.

Gold doesn't tarnish unless exposed to certain acids.

It is absolutely irrational that a nation would use gold as the basis for money supply.

>>8014730
Why? Its pretty and semi-rare

>>8012243
Ag =/= Pt

>China is refusing to make its new gold-backed Yuan, convertible from or to US Dollars:

>>>/news/39541

WW3 here we come

>>8010654
>Gold was is and always will be valuable material throughout the years.
>Post anything you know about this marvelous material

Gold will not always be valuable.

>>8015653
So what, you think the US will attack China because of that, just as they attacked Saddam who wanted to trade oil in euros instead of dollars, or Gadaffi who wanted to issue a new gold currency?

>>8012462
>copper and aluminum are the metals that are most valuable.

Ok, I'll gladly trade my copper and aluminum for your gold. Deal?

>gold is rare

lol

>>8017978
Comparatively to many other elements, sure. Also, just imagine how expensive the supernova which produced the gold found in the Earth's crust must have been.

>>8012362

Highest electronegativity after halogens*

>>8018316
Highest electron affinity after halogens.*

>>8018322
That's why it's almost just as "noble" as the noble gases.

It will be a lot less valuable if we start boiling down asteroids for gold. We do thus for one metal asteroid and we could pretty much tank the price of gold.

>>8011557
thanks sherlock

it's like we didnt already know this

>>8018432
The guys claiming that it will be more valuable than gold apparently don't.

>>8010879
That's not how it's happened historically.
The value of gold has survived multiple civilizations collapses.
>>8010654
Its thought that the value of gold is old as the Egyptian civilization.
Gold was thought as the "divine metal", its color being embued by the sun god himself