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> In theory, as the density of uranium is 19.1g/cm3, which is approximately 70% denser than lead, tungsten gold plated bar and tungsten alloy gold bar could be

> In theory, as the density of uranium is 19.1g/cm3, which is approximately 70% denser than lead, tungsten gold plated bar and tungsten alloy gold bar could be used as material of making fake gold products. Why does this article begin talking about Uranium and lead and then immediately non sequitur into tungsten? There must be something I'm missing?

duxup 4y ago
I was wondering the same. Is this part 2 of a series or something?
MetalLord 4y ago
Ha. So I searched with the first phrases, and there are multiple results that are identical. But then there's this :"In theory, as its density is 19.1g/cm3, which is approximately 70% denser than lead, uranium could be used as material of making fake coin. However, it is weakly radioactive and not as dense as gold, so it does not appear to be a practical method. Then people have discovered that tungsten is environmental-friendly, durable and hardness, the most important is that its density of 19.25g/cm3 is just about the same density as gold (19.3g/cm3), which bears the similar specific gravity." So I guess someone copy pasted a mistake that someone did when shortening the original version. http://news.chinatungsten.com/en/tungsten-dart-news/46-tungsten-news-en/tungsten-information/27396-ti-1892.html http://news.chinatungsten.com/en/tungsten-dart-news/46-tungs...
adrian_b 4y ago
That is an obvious typo. The intention must have been to write "uranium" everywhere in that paragraph, instead of "tungsten". Uranium and tungsten are the 2 metals which have about the same density as gold, so they can be used to fake gold. The only alternative would be to use alloys of rhenium, osmium, iridium or platinum (or also neptunium, but that is too expensive and too radioactive), but that would be pointless because such alloys would be too expensive. Nevertheless, when I have read the paragraph for the first time, I have not spotted the error, because it is also true that tungsten is weakly radioactive. The majority of the chemical elements heavier than the rare-earth elements, with a few exceptions (lead, gold, mercury and iridium) are weakly radioactive, but their radioactivity is several orders of magnitude lower than that of thorium and uranium.

duxup 4y ago

I was wondering the same. Is this part 2 of a series or something?

MetalLord 4y ago

Ha. So I searched with the first phrases, and there are multiple results that are identical. But then there's this :"In theory, as its density is 19.1g/cm3, which is approximately 70% denser than lead, uranium could be used as material of making fake coin. However, it is weakly radioactive and not as dense as gold, so it does not appear to be a practical method. Then people have discovered that tungsten is environmental-friendly, durable and hardness, the most important is that its density of 19.25g/cm3 is just about the same density as gold (19.3g/cm3), which bears the similar specific gravity." So I guess someone copy pasted a mistake that someone did when shortening the original version. http://news.chinatungsten.com/en/tungsten-dart-news/46-tungsten-news-en/tungsten-information/27396-ti-1892.html http://news.chinatungsten.com/en/tungsten-dart-news/46-tungs...

adrian_b 4y ago

That is an obvious typo. The intention must have been to write "uranium" everywhere in that paragraph, instead of "tungsten". Uranium and tungsten are the 2 metals which have about the same density as gold, so they can be used to fake gold. The only alternative would be to use alloys of rhenium, osmium, iridium or platinum (or also neptunium, but that is too expensive and too radioactive), but that would be pointless because such alloys would be too expensive. Nevertheless, when I have read the paragraph for the first time, I have not spotted the error, because it is also true that tungsten is weakly radioactive. The majority of the chemical elements heavier than the rare-earth elements, with a few exceptions (lead, gold, mercury and iridium) are weakly radioactive, but their radioactivity is several orders of magnitude lower than that of thorium and uranium.