Going for the Gold
Going for the Gold: Why it was Once Currency
By: Kyle Wang
Gold is highly appreciated. With gold comes positive traits, such as victory, superiority, etc because if you get a gold metal, you typically rank first. However, have you ever wondered why gold is associated with victory and glory? Besides being expensive and rare, it signifies royalty and majesty. Kings and queens most likely picked gold because of how appealing it is. However, there is much more to the story than just this.
One reason that gold is the preferred method is because it is the most "chemically uninteresting" for currency. On the periodic table of elements, some of the elements are gases. This is not ideal, as we know that no one is going to carry containers of gas as currency, so that option can be eliminated. Liquid elements, such as mercury, are not practical and poisonous too. On the other hand, you have alkaline metals. These metals are extremely reactive. They can explode, and carrying an explosive metal around would not be good for the environment. If it gets wet, then imminent explosion follows. On the bottom of the table, separate from the main part, you have elements such as einsteinium (discovered by Albert, not the one your thinking of) are radioactive, and will easily kill everyone. Eliminate all of those elements and 49 contestants remain. We have some tough elements such as titanium, but they cannot be smelted by regular furnaces; therefore making them not malleable. This still makes notable elements, such as iron or copper, a possibility. The problem with these elements is that they corrode easily, and do not last. Now there are eight rare minerals that can all be chosen, including silver, gold. However, the other six elements are too rare. This requires coin-makers to make coins out of these elements really small, but small items can easily be lost. So why choose to gold over silver? This is because over time, silver tarnishes with sulfur. Like I mentioned earlier, gold is so chemically uninteresting, that it becomes the best option for currency.
Besides the fact that gold is the "chemically uninteresting" element on the periodic table of elements, it is also the appealing. Some of the properties of metals that we learned about include malleability, ductility, and luster. If there was a scale for how metallic something is, metal would be really far on one side. To support this, gold is the most malleable and ductile out of all of the metals in the world. Gold has the third most luster out of all of the metals. The fact that the metal is so shiny and easy to work with is probably another strong reason why gold is a superior currency over others.
You might be wondering, if gold is such an amazing form of currency, then why don't we stick with gold? Why do we use paper money? It began in England, when the Great Depression first hit the citizens. People were racing to the bank to trade paper money in for gold because they realized that the price of money would inflate drastically. England started becoming afraid that they began running out of gold, which eventually forced the switch to abandon the use of gold as currency. America and other countries soon began doing the same thing. This may be tragic, but economists agree that it was for the best and it probably ended the Great Depression.
Since then, the price of gold has drastically increased, and other forms of currency such as bitcoin has appeared. However, this is simply the norm of economy. As demand goes up, supply goes down, and vice versa. This is exactly what happened to gold and bitcoin. As the price of bitcoin increases a lot, there is more demand, but not everyone can have it. Some things we simply have to move on from, such as gold.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25255957
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-chemist-explains-why-gold-beat-out-lithium-osmium-einsteinium
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/04/27/135604828/why-we-left-the-gold-standard
One reason that gold is the preferred method is because it is the most "chemically uninteresting" for currency. On the periodic table of elements, some of the elements are gases. This is not ideal, as we know that no one is going to carry containers of gas as currency, so that option can be eliminated. Liquid elements, such as mercury, are not practical and poisonous too. On the other hand, you have alkaline metals. These metals are extremely reactive. They can explode, and carrying an explosive metal around would not be good for the environment. If it gets wet, then imminent explosion follows. On the bottom of the table, separate from the main part, you have elements such as einsteinium (discovered by Albert, not the one your thinking of) are radioactive, and will easily kill everyone. Eliminate all of those elements and 49 contestants remain. We have some tough elements such as titanium, but they cannot be smelted by regular furnaces; therefore making them not malleable. This still makes notable elements, such as iron or copper, a possibility. The problem with these elements is that they corrode easily, and do not last. Now there are eight rare minerals that can all be chosen, including silver, gold. However, the other six elements are too rare. This requires coin-makers to make coins out of these elements really small, but small items can easily be lost. So why choose to gold over silver? This is because over time, silver tarnishes with sulfur. Like I mentioned earlier, gold is so chemically uninteresting, that it becomes the best option for currency.
Besides the fact that gold is the "chemically uninteresting" element on the periodic table of elements, it is also the appealing. Some of the properties of metals that we learned about include malleability, ductility, and luster. If there was a scale for how metallic something is, metal would be really far on one side. To support this, gold is the most malleable and ductile out of all of the metals in the world. Gold has the third most luster out of all of the metals. The fact that the metal is so shiny and easy to work with is probably another strong reason why gold is a superior currency over others.
You might be wondering, if gold is such an amazing form of currency, then why don't we stick with gold? Why do we use paper money? It began in England, when the Great Depression first hit the citizens. People were racing to the bank to trade paper money in for gold because they realized that the price of money would inflate drastically. England started becoming afraid that they began running out of gold, which eventually forced the switch to abandon the use of gold as currency. America and other countries soon began doing the same thing. This may be tragic, but economists agree that it was for the best and it probably ended the Great Depression.
Since then, the price of gold has drastically increased, and other forms of currency such as bitcoin has appeared. However, this is simply the norm of economy. As demand goes up, supply goes down, and vice versa. This is exactly what happened to gold and bitcoin. As the price of bitcoin increases a lot, there is more demand, but not everyone can have it. Some things we simply have to move on from, such as gold.
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| Gold. |
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| Malleability of gold |
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25255957
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-chemist-explains-why-gold-beat-out-lithium-osmium-einsteinium
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/04/27/135604828/why-we-left-the-gold-standard
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