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It appears that Apple is making gold better - amazing. What is the desirability of gold? It is the essence of the metal or the appearance? If apple is able to

It appears that Apple is making gold better - amazing. What is the desirability of gold? It is the essence of the metal or the appearance? If apple is able to improve the essence of the metal and improve the longevity of the appearance - I say it's a win.

mod 12y ago
I agree. Frankly I don't care if it's gold or not (or, since I don't wear gold jewelry, I don't care if it's silver/titanium/stainless or not). As long as it looks nice and performs well.
mathgeek 12y ago
While there are certainly some valuable properties to gold, one has to wonder how much of the value we place on gold is extrinsic.
- jrockway 12y ago
  Gold is important to industry because it's conductive and doesn't oxidize. It's used for plating PCB pads and metal-to-metal contacts. Of course, you only need a tiny, tiny amount relative to a watch to plate a PCB or connector.
  - mathgeek 12y ago
    Yep. That's what I meant by the valuable properties.
    - jrockway 12y ago
      Theoretically this is why it has value for hoarders; it's useful. Of course, if suddenly gold was unfashionable and was only needed for plating connectors, I doubt you'd get $1200 an ounce. But it will probably stay fashionable because people like the color. (As someone who regularly uses public transportation, I personally won't be getting a gold watch. But I see the appeal.)
    - baddox 12y ago
      Why is the willingness of people to pay a lot of money for something because they like its texture or color and more "extrinsic value" than the willingness of people to pay a lot of money for something because they like its corrosion resistance?
      - function_seven 12y ago
        I would say it's not. But I bet you if you came up with a replacement alloy that had the same exact texture and color as gold, people would not knowingly pay the same money for it. Just like lab diamonds can be grown to look even better than mined diamonds, the fact that they're from a lab still (sadly) diminishes their value.
      - mathgeek 12y ago
        You read into my comment as a statement of mutual exclusiveness, perhaps?
- code_duck 12y ago
  You could determine that by evaluating the proportion of gold that is used for industrial applications versus ornamentation. Based on my vague Internet research, I believe about three quarters of the gold consumed each year becomes a jewelry. That suggests that much of the value is linked to social status.
minikites 12y ago
Gold is desirable because all of the other elements are worse at being currency: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-chemist-explains-why-gold-beat-out-lithium-osmium-einsteinium http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-chemis... ---------------------------- So we're down from 118 elements to 30, and we've come up with a list of three key requirements: - Not a gas. - Doesn't corrode or burst into flames - Doesn't kill you. Now Sanat adds a new requirement: You want the thing you pick to be rare. This lets him cross off a lot of the boxes near the top of the table, because the elements clustered there tend to be more abundant. At the same time, you don't want to pick an element that's too rare. So osmium — which apparently comes to earth via meteorites — gets the axe. That leaves us with just five elements: rhodium, palladium, silver, platinum and gold. And all of them, as it happens, are considered precious metals. ----------------------------
- acveilleux 12y ago
  Gold has an additional bonus in being very resistant to oxidation or, well, pretty much anything it can be expected to encounter. A not insignificant property I would think. It's interesting to note that before modern manufacturing processes, Aluminum was also a very valuable metal. It had all sorts of desirable properties and manufacturing costs were so high that it was effectively rare. Cheap hydroelectricity and process scaling have taken care of that however.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  One other bonus: gold is mined, AFAIK, at a rate roughly comparable to the increase/production of value of everything else in society. Money is used to represent units of value in society, and inflation helps when the increase in the money supply matches economic growth. The increase in gold seems about on par with world economic growth, as noted in the aphorism that an ounce of gold can always buy a good suit or a good handgun.
- unfamiliar 12y ago
  > So we're down from 118 elements to 30 Without stating why it needs to be an element in the first place. Why not any compound?
anjc 12y ago
They're not "making gold better" like magical alchemists, they're making a composite material.

mod 12y ago

I agree. Frankly I don't care if it's gold or not (or, since I don't wear gold jewelry, I don't care if it's silver/titanium/stainless or not). As long as it looks nice and performs well.

mathgeek 12y ago

While there are certainly some valuable properties to gold, one has to wonder how much of the value we place on gold is extrinsic.

jrockway 12y ago
Gold is important to industry because it's conductive and doesn't oxidize. It's used for plating PCB pads and metal-to-metal contacts. Of course, you only need a tiny, tiny amount relative to a watch to plate a PCB or connector.
- mathgeek 12y ago
  Yep. That's what I meant by the valuable properties.
  - jrockway 12y ago
    Theoretically this is why it has value for hoarders; it's useful. Of course, if suddenly gold was unfashionable and was only needed for plating connectors, I doubt you'd get $1200 an ounce. But it will probably stay fashionable because people like the color. (As someone who regularly uses public transportation, I personally won't be getting a gold watch. But I see the appeal.)
  - baddox 12y ago
    Why is the willingness of people to pay a lot of money for something because they like its texture or color and more "extrinsic value" than the willingness of people to pay a lot of money for something because they like its corrosion resistance?
    - function_seven 12y ago
      I would say it's not. But I bet you if you came up with a replacement alloy that had the same exact texture and color as gold, people would not knowingly pay the same money for it. Just like lab diamonds can be grown to look even better than mined diamonds, the fact that they're from a lab still (sadly) diminishes their value.
    - mathgeek 12y ago
      You read into my comment as a statement of mutual exclusiveness, perhaps?
code_duck 12y ago
You could determine that by evaluating the proportion of gold that is used for industrial applications versus ornamentation. Based on my vague Internet research, I believe about three quarters of the gold consumed each year becomes a jewelry. That suggests that much of the value is linked to social status.

minikites 12y ago

Gold is desirable because all of the other elements are worse at being currency: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-chemist-explains-why-gold-beat-out-lithium-osmium-einsteinium http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-chemis... ---------------------------- So we're down from 118 elements to 30, and we've come up with a list of three key requirements: - Not a gas. - Doesn't corrode or burst into flames - Doesn't kill you. Now Sanat adds a new requirement: You want the thing you pick to be rare. This lets him cross off a lot of the boxes near the top of the table, because the elements clustered there tend to be more abundant. At the same time, you don't want to pick an element that's too rare. So osmium — which apparently comes to earth via meteorites — gets the axe. That leaves us with just five elements: rhodium, palladium, silver, platinum and gold. And all of them, as it happens, are considered precious metals. ----------------------------

acveilleux 12y ago
Gold has an additional bonus in being very resistant to oxidation or, well, pretty much anything it can be expected to encounter. A not insignificant property I would think. It's interesting to note that before modern manufacturing processes, Aluminum was also a very valuable metal. It had all sorts of desirable properties and manufacturing costs were so high that it was effectively rare. Cheap hydroelectricity and process scaling have taken care of that however.
ctdonath 12y ago
One other bonus: gold is mined, AFAIK, at a rate roughly comparable to the increase/production of value of everything else in society. Money is used to represent units of value in society, and inflation helps when the increase in the money supply matches economic growth. The increase in gold seems about on par with world economic growth, as noted in the aphorism that an ounce of gold can always buy a good suit or a good handgun.
unfamiliar 12y ago
> So we're down from 118 elements to 30 Without stating why it needs to be an element in the first place. Why not any compound?

anjc 12y ago

They're not "making gold better" like magical alchemists, they're making a composite material.