Comment by cogman10 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cogman10 | Hacker News Reader

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Fair point, but I still don't believe that just because something is more available, we'd discover more applications for it.

After all, we've used gold for tooth fillings in the past. That's a pretty high accessibility for everyone.

I could see the argument for materials (such as anti-matter) which are only synthesized in the lab. However, gold, while expensive, is also fairly common to researchers.

Take platinum as another counter point. Even though it is more expensive than gold, we still put it in catalytic converters for millions of cars.

Gold is researchable today. Maybe if it were more available we wouldn't exclude it from research due to cost. But that is a big maybe.

If silicon were as rare as gold, we'd still be able to say "Hey, this gets transparent when we heat it up" and "Hey, this doesn't really conduct electricity well". That is, we'd be able to see it and have the arguments of "if we just had a bunch more of this, we could make a lot of cool glass things". AFAIK, there isn't some application that exists like that with gold.

It is very malleable. It has a low melting point. It doesn't corrode. The best application I think we'd come up for it is something like using it for soldering like we use tin (it would probably do a better job there than tin does).

> Fair point, but I still don't believe that just because something is more available, we'd discover more applications for it.

I really don't understand why you would believe this. There are countless things we can make out of widely available materials like stone, wood, glass, steel, etc., because we've spent an enormous amount of time learning how to work with these materials. Researchers have budgets that they have to work with, so they don't use much gold, just enough to plate something that needs to be corrosion resistant or another similar use. Some researchers have large budgets, but who would research the application of gold to everyday purposes if you know that it wouldn't be financially viable?

> Take platinum as another counter point. Even though it is more expensive than gold, we still put it in catalytic converters for millions of cars.

Platinum has been variously more and less expensive than gold over the course of history. At this particular moment it is less expensive, ten years ago it was more.

> If silicon were as rare as gold, we'd still be able to say "Hey, this gets transparent when we heat it up" and "Hey, this doesn't really conduct electricity well".

If silicon were as rare as gold, we would not have:

- Windows

- Eyeglasses

- Microscopes

- Telescopes

- Cameras

Except for use by the extremely wealthy and well-funded, or perhaps in extremely inferior versions. There are some better substitutes we could make in the latter half of the 20th century out of plastics.

> It is very malleable. It has a low melting point. It doesn't corrode. The best application I think we'd come up for it is something like using it for soldering like we use tin (it would probably do a better job there than tin does).

You wouldn't stop using tin just because you started using gold :-) You would use something like 80Au20Sn.

But I think that just because you can't imagine a use for it, doesn't mean that someone else hasn't.

> I really don't understand why you would believe this. There are countless things we can make out of widely available materials like stone, wood, glass, steel, etc., because we've spent an enormous amount of time learning how to work with these materials.

Because, for general manufacturing, gold is sort of garbage. It looks nice and doesn't corrode. So that's cool. But it is extremely malleable (bad) and has a relatively low melting point (also bad).

So, what would you do with a gold thing that scratches when you look at it and melts at a slightly higher temperature than lead?

What daily application would you use it for? Wiring? Aluminum and copper are better. A Mylar type blanket? Maybe, IDK. Door handles? Possibly.

But I fail to see where else we might use it. You wouldn't use it for any sort of structural application. You MIGHT use it to plate the likes of steal beams/cables to keep them from corroding.

Glass isn't used for structural applications either. I think if gold were cheap we would coat a lot of things with it, for the corrosion resistance. We spend a lot of time already just worrying about corrosion.

Coating with gold to prevent corrosion is a bad idea for the same reason you don't use copper but zinc to prevent corrosion.

You want your coating to be electrochemically weaker than the material you are trying to protect so it dissolves instead of the material.

> Because, for general manufacturing, gold is sort of garbage.

Pure gold is crap but cheap gold means cheap gold alloys and they are way better.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2016-07-lab-titan...

The entire technology revolution is based around the idea that "if we have more of something we find new applications"... You wouldn't have an iPhone if compute power was as rare as gold.

The whole article is written with the tone of someone who doesn't understand the concept of "unknown unknowns".

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