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Gold’s symbol, Au, originates from the Latin word aurum, which translates to “glowing dawn.” Its dazzling yellow hue and radiant shine have made gold a sought-after material for jewelry and cherished artifacts for centuries. Remarkably, all the gold ever mined could be melted down into a single cube with sides measuring 70 feet each. Keep reading for more luxurious details.
1. GOLD WAS LIKELY THE FIRST METAL HUMAN BEINGS EVER USED.
With its atomic number 79, gold is nearly twice as dense as iron, yet its remarkable malleability made it likely the first metal worked by humans. The earliest known gold artifacts come from the Thracian civilization, located in what is now Bulgaria, and are 4000 years old. The famous death mask of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun is made from around 220 pounds of gold. Although gold has been a part of human culture for millennia, more than 90 percent of all gold ever used has been mined since 1848, the year when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California, sparking the California Gold Rush.
2. ALL THE GOLD IN THE UNIVERSE COULD HAVE ORIGINATED FROM COLLIDING NEUTRON STARS.
In 2017, astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, along with other institutions, observed two enormous neutron stars spinning around each other at an ever-increasing pace. When these stars—each up to twice as massive as the Sun—finally collided, gravitational waves rippled across the universe, and clouds of neutron-rich material were ejected. For the first time, scientists saw red light emerging from the collision, signaling the creation of heavy elements like uranium, gold, and platinum. This discovery supports the idea that all gold in the universe may have been formed this way, and that particles of this gold likely arrived on Earth via meteorites billions of years ago.
3. IT’S A SUPERB CONDUCTOR OF ELECTRICITY.
Gold is highly efficient at transferring both heat and electricity—although not quite as much as copper and silver. Metals usually conduct electricity well because their atoms easily share electrons: As an electric current passes through, the electrons move in the same direction with minimal voltage. (In contrast, insulators like glass only allow electrons to move when exposed to high voltages.) Gold’s resistance to oxidation and corrosion means it continues to conduct electrons even when exposed to the air. This is why gold is used to coat electrical contact surfaces in devices such as smartphones and airbag sensors.
4. YOU MIGHT FIND SUNKEN TREASURE, BUT YOU PROBABLY WON’T BE ABLE TO KEEP IT.
In 1985, diver Mel Fisher discovered the wreck of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a renowned Spanish treasure ship that sank during a hurricane in 1622. Fisher famously lived by the motto “finders, keepers,” and over the next few decades, he recovered gold, silver, emeralds, and pearls worth millions of dollars. Although admiralty law granted Fisher the right to keep his findings, archaeologists, historians, and conservationists voiced opposition. Just two years after the discovery, Congress passed a law declaring that treasures found in wrecks within three miles of a U.S. coastline belong to the states in which they are located.
5. GOLD CAN BE MEASURED USING A UNIT DATING BACK TO THE MIDDLE AGES …
The gold standard is a monetary system that links the value of currency to gold, theoretically preventing inflation. The U.S. adopted this system in 1879, but abandoned it in 1933 to help alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. The gold standard was completely discontinued by 1971.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Treasury still retains 261.5 million fine troy ounces of gold, measured in a unit that originates from the Middle Ages and takes its name from the French city of Troyes. (A troy ounce is slightly heavier than a regular ounce.) The gold is stored in the form of bullion, coins, and other miscellaneous units in vaults at federal mints and reserve banks. As of September 2017, the total market value of the government’s gold reserves amounted to $335.5 billion.
6. … OR EVEN IN BREAD.
The value of gold has surprisingly remained consistent throughout history. John Mulligan, head of member and market relations at the World Gold Council, shares an example from the 6th century BCE: “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon paid for 350 loaves of bread with an ounce of gold.” Fast forward nearly 2500 years, with gold priced at approximately $1200 per ounce and a loaf of bread costing $2.50, and an ounce of gold would now buy 480 loaves. “When we compare gold to the purchasing power of major world currencies over the last century or more,” Mulligan notes, “none have held up like gold.”
7. GOLD COULD PLAY A ROLE IN FIGHTING CANCER.
“Gold doesn’t do much when it’s in large chunks—it just sits there and shines,” explains Mostafa A. El-Sayed, a top chemist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “But when you break it down into smaller pieces, it takes on new properties.” In a 2017 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, El-Sayed experimented with gold nanorods in mice with tumors and used a laser to heat the nanorods. The heat generated by the rods was sufficient to destroy the surrounding cancer cells. Over 15 months, the mice showed no signs of long-term toxicity. El-Sayed and his team referred to these results as “a strong framework” for testing this technique on humans in the future.
8. GOLD HAS BEEN UTILIZED IN DENTISTRY FOR OVER 4000 YEARS.
Gold’s malleability and biocompatibility (meaning it’s safe to use inside the body) have made it a valuable material in dentistry. Archaeological findings reveal gold dental work in skulls from Southeast Asia that date back over 4000 years. The Bolinao skull, a 14th or 15th-century artifact from the Philippines, is one of 67 skulls discovered with decorated teeth. Gold plates, 10 millimeters in width, are placed on the incisors and canines in a pattern resembling fish scales. Even today, gold-alloy crowns are still used to restore or strengthen teeth.
9. NASA INCORPORATES GOLD INTO SPACE TECHNOLOGY.
Astronauts’ space suit visors are coated with a layer of gold just 0.000002 inches thick. This thin coating protects their eyes from the Sun’s harmful infrared rays while still letting visible light pass through. The same reflective properties of gold will be used in the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be searching for the first stars and potentially habitable exoplanets. The telescope’s mirrors, made of beryllium, will be arranged in a honeycomb-like pattern of 18 hexagonal sections. Three grams of gold were vaporized in a vacuum chamber and applied to these mirrors, with the gold layer measuring only 100 nanometers thick—significantly thinner than a sheet of paper.
10. COLORADO’S CAPITOL DOME IS COVERED IN PURE GOLD LEAF.
At least 10 U.S. state capitol buildings feature gold-topped domes, including those in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Colorado’s dome was restored in 2013 with approximately 65 ounces of pure gold mined from within the state. The gold was hammered into leaves as thin as one-8000th to one-10,000th of an inch thick. Gilders carefully applied 140,000 3-inch squares of gold leaf to sticky copper plates, which were then placed onto the dome. Doug Platt, communications manager for the state’s Department of Personnel and Administration, tells Mytour, “The work is as much an art as a science due to how delicate and fragile the gold leaf is.”
