Unbelievable Facts
Gold is one of the most mysterious substances associated with great value. Even during the Olympic Games, the winner's medal is gold.
So why did gold become the most valuable of all metals?
Gold is not the rarest element and does not react with many other elements. It is neither radioactive nor poisonous, and is yellow in color.
Here are some more fun facts about gold that you might not know yet.
Gold on Earth
1. One ton of old cell phones can produce more gold than a ton of gold ore.
2. If we extracted all the ocean's gold, we'd have 4 kilograms of gold for every person in the world.
3. Hungarian chemist Gyorgy de Hevesy dissolved German physicists Max von Laue and James Frank's Nobel gold medals to hide them from seizure by the Nazis. After the war, the medals were re-cast.
4. Sailors often wore gold earrings, because if they drowned and were thrown ashore, the earrings served as a way of paying for a proper burial in a Christian way.
5. Only 1 per cent of an Olympic gold medal consists of gold.
6. Dubai has ATMs that issue gold bars.
7. Most of the gold in the Earth's crust got there due to asteroid falls.
8. Most of the gold on Earth is in the core, as it sank to the center when our planet was forming.
Gold mining
9. In 1859, gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up at 1 a.m. to have breakfast. The aurora was so bright that they thought it was morning.
10. Ice cream tasters use gold spoons to avoid the aftertaste left by regular spoons.
See also: How to clean gold at home?
11. The head of Roman politician Gaius Gracchus was awarded a reward equal to gold weighing on his head. Although the head was delivered, the reward was not paid as the invader filled the head with lead.
12. Aluminum was considered the most valuable metal on Earth. Rich people ate from aluminum dishes, while poor people used gold.
13. Mansa Musa, the ruler of the Mali Empire, once spent so much gold in Egypt that he devalued it and almost destroyed the economy.
14. Chinese prisoners are forced to mine for gold in World of Warcraft. According to some sources, there are about 100,000 virtual gold miners across the country.
15. LEGO used to give its employees 25.65 grams of gold bricks for 25 years of service.
Interesting facts about gold
16. Gold is edible.
17. Gold has been found on all continents of our planet.
18. Gold is often released into water during earthquakes due to pressure deep within the earth's crust.
19. Traces of gold were found in the leaves of eucalyptus trees.
20. Three Olympic pools can hold all the gold mined in human history.
21. Almost half of this gold was mined in one place, the Witwatersrand in South Africa.
22. Aurophobia is a fear of gold.
23. Indian housewives own nearly 11 per cent of the world's gold. This is more than the US, Switzerland, Germany and the International Monetary Fund combined.
24. The largest gold bar weighs 250 kg.
The amount of gold in a person
25. Our body contains about 0.2 mg of gold, mostly in the blood.
