18 Nov
2009
18 Nov
'09
12:37 a.m.
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:48:53PM +0000, Philip Pemberton wrote:
Seth Morabito wrote:
Thanks to DeBeers the prices for (jewelry) diamonds are nowhere near
realistic prices and _massively_ controlled.
Why is an ounce of gold worth $1000? Because
that's what people will
pay for it. It has no inherent use; you can't eat it, you can't live in
it, you can't keep warm with it. But someone will give you $800 for it
and come away feeling like they've got a great bargain indeed.
I was thinking about this while I was on the bus the other day. Diamond
I can see going for a significant amount (it has a fair few industrial
and commercial uses) though the only use I could come up with for gold
was the plating on edge connectors...
For ICs, the bonding wires between chip and chip carrier. Also various
gold plated contacts (for durability and good connections).
Then we get onto platinum.. Catalytic converters were
the only use I
could think of for that. Didn't manage to think of a single commercial
or industrial use for silver at all...
There a quite a few:
- traces on PCBs as well as contacts for superior conductivity
- batteries
- optics (both for mirrors and coatings, although the way cheaper
aluminium is often used)
- as a catalyst and quite a few more uses
Also as a permanent germ killer (silver is rather unhealthy to a lot of
germs, while quite harmless to humans).
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison