Public science popularization
Recently, the international gold price has surged strongly, and the price of the domestic gold retail market has also risen. On March 30th, the listing price of jewelry gold in many brand gold shops reached 686 yuan per gram, which was close to 700 yuan per gram.
Throughout the world, it seems that there is no one who does not know that gold is a precious thing. Then, there are many rare metals, why does the whole world think gold is valuable? How did everyone achieve unity?
The earth’s total gold reserves are large.
But most of them cannot be mined.
It is found that the content of gold in the earth’s crust is about 1/100 billion, and that in seawater is about 1/100 billion. According to the gold content of the earth’s crust and seawater, the reserves of gold in the earth are still relatively large, reaching 65 trillion tons. According to the calculation of the head, everyone can get 9000 tons of gold.
With such a huge reserve of gold on earth, why is gold still a precious metal?
This has to mention the location of most gold. In fact, at present, the world’s annual gold output is only 3000 tons, and all the gold that can be mined are surface gold mines. A large amount of gold is buried deep in the earth’s crust, and the current technology can’t reach it at all.
Therefore, the ultimate question under discussion now becomes-why is gold in such a deep place?
Formation of elements
According to the existing theories, experiments and astronomical exploration, all elements have corresponding origin celestial bodies or celestial activities.
Element formation after BIGBANG;
Not long after the BIGBANG, hydrogen and helium flooded the whole universe, accounting for more than 99%, but these are only the first two elements in the periodic table. So far, the periodic table of elements has been expanded to 118. Where did the other elements come from?
Star evolution:
Take the sun as an example. The reason why the sun glows and gives off heat mainly depends on the nuclear fusion reaction of the star core. Simply put, the nuclei get together and fuse into a larger nucleus. In this process, the number of protons increases, so the elements with larger atomic numbers are obtained.
The star first undergoes the nuclear fusion reaction of hydrogen nuclei, and hydrogen atoms with proton number of 1 combine, and 1 proton +1 proton =2 protons, resulting in helium atoms with atomic number of 2.
The nuclear fusion reaction continues. After generating helium atoms, various arbitrary and complicated additions can be made. For example, two helium atoms 2+2=4 generate beryllium atoms (atomic number 4), and then a beryllium atom and a helium atom 2+4=6 generate carbon atoms (atomic number 6) … Just like this, elements are born in the process of continuous addition.
At present, the known star reaction can last until iron atoms are generated, but at this time, the star has almost no remaining nuclear energy to support its own weight.
Supernova explosion:
Under the action of gravity, stars contract strongly and even compress atoms.
The trillions of tons of matter around the core hit inward at the speed of tens of thousands of kilometers per hour, colliding with the hard core, producing a huge shock wave, and finally the supernova exploded. Its explosive brightness can be compared with that of a galaxy, and at the same time, elements with atomic numbers larger than iron will be born.
Neutron star merger:
After a supernova explosion, a star becomes either a neutron star or a black hole. The density of neutron stars is very large, and the mass of a spoon can reach hundreds of millions of tons. Therefore, after two neutron stars meet, their gravitational force will be very great, and they will eventually merge together.
This energy causes atoms to collide wildly with each other, thus producing elements with relatively large atomic numbers such as gold and platinum.
These elements are floating around in the universe, and some of them fall on the "young" earth.
Gold on the earth
The earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago through an accretion process that lasted for millions of years.
The energy released by a steady stream of accretion substances produces a lot of heat, which turns the young earth into a mass of molten rock, and this flowing state causes the heavier elements to slowly sink to the core, thus forming the metal core shape of the earth.
However, during the period after the cooling and solidification of the earth’s crust, that is, from 4.2 billion years ago to 3.8 billion years ago, meteorites violently hit the earth again, and a large number of asteroids collided with early terrestrial planets in the solar system. This "late heavy bombardment" brought the heavier elements that sank in the early days of the earth back to the earth’s surface.
So many rare metals
Why does everyone love gold?
There are still many rare metals on the earth, such as molybdenum, lithium, tungsten and so on, which are rare metal elements. They are not only very rare in the earth’s crust, but also difficult to extract. Why only gold has become the "chosen son"?
Valuable:
The grade (gold content) of general industrial gold mines is 2 ~ 3g/ton; Rich ore is 5 ~ 50g/ton, and extremely rich ore can reach 50 ~ 500g/ton; Lean ore is 0.1 ~ 1g/ton. There are not many rich and extremely rich gold mines in the whole earth, which are generally industrial mines with a grade of 1 ~ 2g/ton, that is to say, only 1 ~ 2g of gold can be obtained by mining 1 ton of ore, and it is conceivable how much labor and equipment energy costs are involved. Therefore, the average cost (professional term is "labor time") contained in each gram of gold is very high.
In addition, the proven exploitable underground gold reserves are only about 100,000 tons. According to the current annual mining volume of about 3,100 tons in the world, after about 30 years, the exploitable gold resources on the earth will be exhausted, and of course its value will be relatively high.
Of course, compared with some rarer metals, such as platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd), osmium (Os), iridium (Ir), ruthenium (Ru) and rhodium (Rh), gold is much more valuable than gold because it is rarer and more difficult to extract.
Easy to process and store:
There is no need to describe the beauty of gold, and it will not rust or be lost. It has been buried underground for thousands of years, and it is still Huang Cancan’s. Moreover, the flexibility of gold is very good. The purer gold is softer and easier to divide and process.
The ductility of gold is very good, and 1 gram of pure gold can pull out about 1000 meters of gold wire; Gold is extremely malleable, that is, it can be beaten into very thin gold foil. At present, the thinnest gold foil in the world is only 0.47 nm, which is almost 2 atoms thick. One gram of gold can beat out about 0.47 square meters of gold foil.
Gold also has excellent physical properties such as excellent corrosion resistance, no oxidation, no easy chemical reaction with other substances, and unchanged refining properties. The so-called real gold is not afraid of fire.
Wide range of uses, value preservation and appreciation:
Because gold has some excellent qualities and characteristics mentioned above, it has been widely used since ancient times. People use it for jewelry decoration or as monetary property, etc. The quantity of gold is a symbol of wealth and rank.
Gold itself has a value equal to its weight, and it is easy to store and will not be damaged. It has a monetary attribute since ancient times. Now it is also the most reliable means of maintaining value for countries to stabilize their economies, and it plays a significant leverage role in stabilizing the political economy of a country and even the world.
Based on the stability, conductivity and beautiful color of gold, gold is also widely used in industry, generally used in important high-end fields, and is an important material in high-end electronic products, modern communications, chemical and medical care, aerospace and other fields, with an annual demand of 100-200 tons.
Gold is so scarce and widely used, and people like it so much. Of course, things are rare and expensive. This is the current price of gold and some reasons why gold is valuable.
Original title: "The price of gold is arrogant! Why is gold so expensive? 》
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