Gold is one of those seemingly mythical substances that somehow came to be equated with extreme value. Even during the Olympics the winning medal is always gold. Why is that? Out of all the metals in the universe why has gold become so valuable? Well, in many ways it has been an interesting course of events that led gold to be considered so highly. For one, it isn’t the rarest metal, not by a long shot. That is not to say that gold isn’t rare…it’s probably even more rare than you think. But there are some elements that are inconceivably rare. As in you could barely find a handful of those elements on the Earth. And gold isn’t particularly interesting. It doesn’t really react with any other elements. So what’s the deal? Well, the boringness of gold is actually what made it very useful as a currency. It wasn’t too rare and it wasn’t too abundant. It wasn’t radioactive and it wasn’t poisonous. Out of all the elements that eliminates most of them (not to mention gasses). From the few that are left (silver, platinum, etc) gold has one distinction…it is yellow-ish. All the others are gray-ish. This means it stands out. And there you go. Gold became the currency of choice and although these days it is no longer used as currency (in most places) it has still retained its value (precisely because it doesn’t react with other elements and therefore tarnish!). These are 25 crazy things you didn’t know about gold!
Featured Image: wikipedia
1 ton of old cell phones will give you more gold than 1 ton of gold ore.
Source: pacebutler.com, Image: wikipedia If you took all the gold out of the ocean, there would be enough for every person on Earth to have 9 pounds.
Source: noaa.gov, Image: wikipedia To prevent the Nazis from confiscating them, Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy melted down the gold Nobel Prizes of German physicists Max von Laue and James Franck. They were recast after the war.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Sailors often wore gold earrings so that if they drowned and washed up on the beach, the earrings would serve as payment for a proper Christian burial.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia The Olympic gold medal is only 1% gold.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia In Dubai, there are ATMs that dispense gold bars.
Source: marika-emirates.blogspot.com, Image: wikipedia Most of the gold in Earth's crust was put there by asteroid strikes.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia The vast majority of gold on Earth is in the core because it sank to the center while the Earth was forming.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Not entirely about gold but a cool fact nevertheless. In 1859 gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up at 1am to eat breakfast because the aurora was so bright they thought it was morning.
Source: scientificamerican, Image: wikipedia Ice cream testers use gold spoons to avoid the after taste of using regular spoons.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia The Roman politician, Gaius gracchus, had a bounty put on his head for its weight in gold. The head was delivered but the bounty wasn't paid because the captor had filled his head with lead.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Aluminum used to be the most valuable metal on Earth. Rich people would dine with aluminum cutlery while poorer people would use gold.
Source: innovationexcellence.com, Image: wikipedia Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire, once spent so much gold in Egypt that he devalued it and nearly destroyed the economy.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Chinese prisoners are forced to mine gold in World of Warcraft. Some sources report nearly 100,000 virtual gold farmers throughout the country.
Source: forbes, Image: beketchai via Flickr LEGO used to give its employees a 25.65 gram brick of gold for completing 25 years of service.
Source: brickenvy.com, Image: wikipedia Gold is edible.
Source: slate.com, Image: wikipedia Gold has been found on every continent.
Source: randomhistory.com, Image: wikipedia Gold is often forcibly extracted from water during earthquakes due to pressure deep within the Earth's crust.
Source: cbc.ca, Image: wikipedia The leaves of eucalyptus trees have been found to contain traces of gold.
Source: telegraph.co.uk, Image: wikipedia Three olympic sized swimming pools are capable of holding all the gold ever mined in human history.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Almost half of that gold has come from one location - Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Source: wikipedia Aurophobia is the fear of gold.
Source: phobia.wikia.com, Image: wikipedia Indian housewives hold nearly 11% of the world's gold. That is more than the US, Switzerland, Germany, and the International Monetary Fund combined!
Source: nytimes, Image: wikipedia The largest gold bar in the world weighs 250 kg (551 pounds).
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia Your body contains about .2 mg of gold, mostly in your bloodstream.
Source: telegraph.co.uk, Image: wikipedia Lists Going Viral Right Now
