Gold is one of the seemingly mythical substances that somehow came to be equated with extreme value. In a country like India Gold is the most precious metal. Even during the Olympics the winning medal is always gold. Why is that? Out of all the metals in the universe why gold become so valuable? Well in many ways it has been an interesting course of events that led gold considered to be so precious. It’s probably even rarer than you think. But there are some elements that are inconceivably rare. It doesn’t really react with any other elements. It wasn’t too rare and it wasn’t abundant too. It wasn’t radioactive and it wasn’t poisonous. Gold became the currency of choice and although these days it is no longer used as currency in most countries it has still retained its value precisely.
Why are discussing about Gold today, because today I’m going to tell you some interesting facts about Gold.
1 ton of old cell phones will give you more gold than 1 ton of gold ore.
If you took all the gold out of the ocean, there would be enough for every person on Earth to have 9 pounds.
Sailors often wore gold earrings so that if they drowned and washed up on the beaches and the earrings would serve as payment for a proper Christian burial.
The Olympic gold medal is only 1% gold.
In Dubai, there are ATMs that dispense gold bars.
Most of the gold in Earth’s crust was put there by asteroid strikes.
The vast majority of gold on Earth is in the core because it sank to the center while the Earth was forming.
Not entirely about gold but a cool fact nevertheless. In 1859 gold miners in the Rocky Mountains used to wake up at 1am to eat breakfast because the light was so bright they thought it was morning.
Gold spoons are used by Ice cream testers to avoid the after taste of using regular spoons.
The Roman politician, Gaius Gracchus, had a bounty put on his own 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.
Aluminum used to be the most valuable metal on Earth. Rich people would dine with aluminum cutlery while poorer people would use gold.
Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire, once spent so much gold in Egypt and nearly destroyed the economy.
Chinese prisoners are forced to mine gold in World of Warcraft. Secret sources report nearly 100,000 virtual gold farmers throughout the country.
Gold is often forcibly extracted during earthquakes from water due to pressure deep within the Earth’s crust.
The leaves of eucalyptus trees have been found to contain traces of gold.
Three Olympic sized swimming pools are capable of holding all the gold ever mined in human history.
Almost half of that gold has come from one location – Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Indian housewives hold nearly 11% of the world’s gold. That is more than the US, Switzerland, Germany, and the International Monetary Fund combined!
The largest gold bar in the world weighs 250 kg (551 pounds).
Our body contains about 0.2 mg of gold, present mostly in our bloodstream.
