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It's about time. Even more useless than gold. Hopefully it's next, though at least it's somewhat fungible and has a small industrial use.
by gumby 3y ago
It's about time. Even more useless than gold. Hopefully it's next, though at least it's somewhat fungible and has a small industrial use.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoAlso you can’t make gold in a lab
- mint2 3y agoA Needless Pedanticism, that is only technically correct if you mean gold that won’t kill you We can make gold in the lab. It’s radioactive gold but still gold. Edit, actually i think in the 1980s Seaborg might have created stable gold out of bismuth, but just might have. The articles aren’t mentioning which isotope was created so I don’t know. Mercury to gold is radioactive isotopes, which is the one I’d known about.
- Loughla 3y agoTangentially related item, since we're just getting weird now. Related to gold and (SPOILER ALERT) Mercury. Listen to the podcast Shit Town. It's one of the best pieces of media ever created.
- seattle_spring 3y agoAgreed. Probably easier to find under the name “S-Town” though.
- roblh 3y agoI’m 2 hours in and it’s riveting, thank you.
- userbinator 3y agoDiamond also finds a lot of industrial use as an abrasive.
- WheelsAtLarge 3y agoActually, diamonds, the industrial type, are very useful. Many industries use diamonds for cutting and drilling. As far as I know, there is no alternative, at the same price point. But they are sold at a fraction of what they sell for jewelry.
- krasin 3y ago> Even more useless than gold. Diamonds are excellent heat sinks and that's increasingly often used for electronics: - https://www.powerwaywafer.com/diamond-heat-sink.html https://www.powerwaywafer.com/diamond-heat-sink.html - https://www.coherent.com/news/blog/diamond-heat-spreaders https://www.coherent.com/news/blog/diamond-heat-spreaders Not to mention that gold is one of the most useful metals out there, just several orders of magnitude too expensive.
- thsksbd 3y agoDiamond and gold are far from useless. Quite the contrary, they're way both too expensive to use in applications where they'd be ideal. Copper is used as cheap gold Mica is used as cheap diamond.
- gumby 3y agoCopper has superior mechanical properties for its applications than gold would. Gold is plated on contacts not just for its conductivity but bc it won’t oxidize. Mica is easier to work with than diamond as well as being cheaper. Both gold and diamond have exotic uses. Diamond is common as an abrasive but no need for clear ones for that application.