• rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    yeah, after impact, quite evenly. last time it happened, it was called iridium anomaly. there’s not that much gold in electronics and other platinum group metals are more useful from material engineering perspective

        • Eheran@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          No. If it were as cheap as steel, we wound make whole packages from it. Completely new things. We already use thicker and more gold plating where the cost is not as much of a factor, like space, medical and military stuff.

          • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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            9 hours ago

            i think of gold more as a premium lead. we’d for sure coat insides of cans with it, instead of tin if it was so cheap, but it’s weaker than steel. radiation shielding would be another one, ever heard of ancient lead used for radiation shielding for high sensitivity experiments? gold has none of these problems. gold ammunition, gold piping for chemical industry instead of nickel alloys, as long as it’s not too heavy. it would also cause all sorts of new problems with recycling

      • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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        1 day ago

        yes for corrosion resistance and ductility. no for hardness, electrical and heat conductivity. you can’t use gold or its compounds as catalysts where copper makes sense

        • Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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          1 day ago

          It’s not shit, it’s top 3 behind silver and copper. But those oxidize and gold doesn’t. So a gold coated silver core is what you want.

          • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz
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            11 hours ago

            or you can use slightly thicker copper. but sometimes you can’t, and that’s when silver is a slight upgrade

            i heard that microwave parts for satellite use are made this way: first you start with aluminum, for structural and weight reasons. then it’s plated on inside (where microwaves are) with thin layer of zinc, then with copper. you can’t plate copper on aluminum directly. copper is there to conduct microwave current, but silver is slightly better, so there’s a layer of silver to conduct most of it, and copper handles the rest. then it’s topped with gold, and normally there’s a layer of nickel between copper and gold, but it’s a big nope for microwaves, and silver is alternative. it’s a very thin layer, so thin that it doesn’t conduct a lot of current, it’s there only for corrosion resistance

          • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
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            1 day ago

            Gold coating for connectors is nice. For everything else it doesn’t really matter, you get an oxide layer that prevents further oxidation.