"the oldest metal known to man"

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hmmm i am just subbin a piece which says that GOLD is the "oldest metal known to man"

i thought BRONZE AGE!!? iron age??!

but of course the whole point of the named ages is that they begin when man learnt to smelt iron or mix up bronze, so that is no argt against after all

gold is inert and can be found in its natural state in nature

SO IS THIS CLAIM TRUE OR IS IT RUB?

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

WHY AM I ASKING YOU?

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

Probably true, for instance "gold" is one of the oldest words in the Indo European family of languages - is that right or did I make that up?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

i'd like to see this thread on ILM, yo

― g-kit (g-kit), Friday, 11 March 2005 12:59 (twenty years ago)

It *might* be true. It's impossible to say.

The oldest metals known to man are those found in their native state, that don't have to be refined from ores. Basically, that means the precious metals plus copper, and maybe also tin - and also a small amount of (meteoric) iron.

The first metal used to make tools was copper. We don't normally speak about the "copper age", though - partly because it was very short, and partly because it wasn't recognised until well after people had already divided time up into Stone / Bronze / Iron. It's normally called the "Chalcolithic period", which literally means "copper / stone". Very quickly, people learned how to make arsenical copper, and then bronze.

(the Ice Man found on the Austrian / Italian border in the 1990s was from the Chalcolithic, incidentally)

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

"Gold!
Always believe in your soul
You’ve got the power to know
You’re indestructible
Always believe in, because you are
Gold...."

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

Precious Metal: from DJ Ötzi to Spandau Ballet and back again

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

Caitlin is correct, as usual.

Also, in all mythology there are mythical "golden ages" which preceded all history. Perhaps this is then not a metaphor!

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:06 (twenty years ago)

ooh good point i hadn't thought of that kate!

(probbly bcz my boss said "there has never been a Gold Age")

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

See, my degree is useful for *something*!

The only myths I can think of with literal golden ages are a) Hesiod's stuff b) one of the dreams interpreted by, I think, Daniel, in the Bible, about a statue with a golden head, silver torso and "legs of mixed iron and clay".

(but I'm sure there are lots of others)

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

Well, there wasn't that much of it lying about was there?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

Your civilisation has entered a golden age.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

Christian myth definitely includes a Golden Age. I wonder if they got it from Jewish tradition or the Greek.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

i also vaguely remember reading that 95% of the gold in circulation or banks or museums now was dug up thousands of years ago

(actually i made up the percentage: but it wz big enough to register whern i read it)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

Everyone seems to be half-remembering things today - today is Half-Remembrance Day, 30 seconds silence please

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

But it can't be anywhere near that high! I mean, why else did the Imperialists invade places like Central America except to get the Mayan Gold? Which they would be digging up in the 1500s and 1600s!

And that's totally disregarding stuff like the South African gold mines.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

The Zep

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

well the mayan gold wz already dug kate!! so you can't count that as a counter!!

the point of what i read (it may be nonsense) was that recent gold bonanzas (like US west coast in the 19th century and south africa) were adding a micro-tiny amount to the totality already available

which makes sense economially come to think of it cz if it was eg doubling the above-ground amounr that wz available, gold wd not be eagerly held onto as a currency that maintains its value

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)

There was a gold age preceding the bronze age, but there was only enough gold to make one hammer, which was a) too heavy to lift and b) so soft it just squidged when you hit a rock with it.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

It was only useful for breaking toffee, which hadn't been invented yet in any case

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:41 (twenty years ago)

It was only by the Toffee Age that Civilization really began.

― lock robster (robster), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

what *is it* about gold? 'they say' that the discovery of gold in california and australia in the mid-19th century had a profound effect on the world economy. how? why gold? sidebar question: what is money?

― N_RQ, Friday, 11 March 2005 13:50 (twenty years ago)

moey; whence it came and where it went

jkg's thesis (boy this is simplified) is that the american economy in the mid 19th century was SO CAVALIER w.standard rules of banking thumb (any who liked cd print notes!! it wz up to you if you accepted them as fake or real) that it created a MASSIVE DECADES-LONG BOOM which effectively saved capitalism from itself well into the 20th century

so the goldrush wz a pretext and a catalyst, not a grounding

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 13:57 (twenty years ago)

What I'd like know is why has gold been THEE precious metal for all sorts of disparate civilizations throughout time. Why not copper or silver (who both have value, but not like gold)?

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

Cos there's much less of it, and it tarnishes less?

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

it doesn't tarnish at all!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

China switched to a silver based standard around uhhhh SOMETIME and most of the new world silver found its way to china.

Until the opium wars when Europe's supply of goods from China became financed by DRUGS! The opium demand in China grew to such a level that silver actually began to flow OUT of China.

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

What other natural resources are as rare as gold? Can we start using them instead of gold? Do I make sense?

― alix (alix), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:24 (twenty years ago)

None of the Mayan gold was dug up - it was all found in native form, probably by panning rivers and so on.

Platinum is currently more valuable than gold, isn't it?

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

according to the Dungeons & Dragons universe it is

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:29 (twenty years ago)

We should switch to a Gelatinous Cube based economy.

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:30 (twenty years ago)

there was NO GOLD IN CIRCULATION in south america till the europeans arrived? blimey!!

b-but what about the LOST CITY OF EL DORADO!!

bad movies have lied to me!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:31 (twenty years ago)

There *was* gold in circulation, but it wasn't dug up. And there wasn't as much of it about as the Spanish thought there was - hence why they galumphed through the continent pillaging away, always thinking that El Dorado must be just over the next hill.

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:34 (twenty years ago)

But the Spanish mined for gold in Mayan areas after the conquest, no?

xpost There was gold in pre-Colombian South America!

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:34 (twenty years ago)

"There *was* gold in circulation, but it wasn't dug up"

don't follow this at all!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:36 (twenty years ago)

Calm down dudes. It wasn't mined is all people are saying - doesn't mean it wasn't found, panned for etc.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

ok sorry i got it, yes by "dug up" i wz including "picked up"!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:38 (twenty years ago)

I think the Spanish also exhumed graves in Central America in their quest for gold.

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

this is goin to be one complex mutha of an [ed.note]

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

Just change it to "one of the oldest", then it'll be right.

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:41 (twenty years ago)

(until pedants point out that all metals were made in the bowels of stars billions of years ago, and that according to physics atoms generally appeared in the order lightest -> heaviest. So, from an astrophysical point of view, lithium is probably the *oldest metal* known to man.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

bah i hate niminy-piminy qualifications, wrong but strong is better writin than korrekt and nuanced

ew-anced more like

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

haha *adds new para to footnote about the birth of stars*

thx caitlin

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

OAK. ISLAND. TREASURE

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

from a google search

Gold was the first metal widely known to our species. When thinking about the historical progress of technology, we consider the development of iron- and copper-working as the greatest contributions to our species' economic and cultural progress - but gold came first. Gold is the easiest of the metals. It occurs in a virtually pure and workable state, whereas most other metals tend to be found in ore-bodies that pose some difficulty in smelting. Gold's early uses were no doubt ornamental, and its brilliance and permanence (it neither corrodes nor tarnishes) linked it to deities and royalty in early civilizations.

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

mark s, I can tell you all about baryons, leptons, quarks, gluons, quantum chromodynamics and antigreen charge if you like - really you should know all this stuff if you're going to write about the beginning of the universe.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

slayer?

er.. xpost with dave b

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

Funny you should mention this; Hans Bethe just died! But it looks to me like Beryllium occurs before Lithium!

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

haha i notice you privilege baryons mark

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

There are two important characteristics of Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN):

* It only lasted for about three minutes; after that, the temperature and density of the universe fell below that which is required for nuclear fusion. The brevity of BBN is important because it prevented elements heavier than beryllium from forming while at the same time allowing unburned light elements, such as deuterium, to exist.
* It was widespread, encompassing the entire universe.

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:57 (twenty years ago)

you don't get much more widespread than that IMO

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

yeah but surely MEN had to have been in existance for them to know it!!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:02 (twenty years ago)

what is the oldest metal known to you ken?

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

my face was introduced to an iron when i was 7 :(

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 March 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

We're living in the argent age.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 11 March 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

Unununium to thread!

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 18:16 (twenty years ago)

the correct answer is Blue Cheer.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 11 March 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept00/primitiveFeNi.html

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 11 March 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

See if you look at a dust cloud or something through a telescope, you are actually looking back in time.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 11 March 2005 18:19 (twenty years ago)

Jerl, if you look at *anything* you're looking back in time, technically.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 11 March 2005 18:22 (twenty years ago)

I guess science was never my strong point.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 11 March 2005 18:23 (twenty years ago)

We are all stars.

― Moby (ex machina), Friday, 11 March 2005 18:39 (twenty years ago)

http://www.screenselect.co.uk/images/products/screenshots/7/1177-1-large.jpg

"...but where would i FIND such a man...?"

― kingfish van vlasic pickles (Kingfish), Saturday, 12 March 2005 03:54 (twenty years ago)

can we go back to talking about tin--i thot that tin was much older then gold.

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 12 March 2005 04:07 (twenty years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305534144.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Saturday, 12 March 2005 05:05 (twenty years ago)

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