• Question: Why can gold not be mass produced ?

    Asked by daisdude to Duncan, Kiran, Paul, Sarah, Sharon on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Hi daisdude, I am afraid I have no idea!!! I think I am going to go and try and find out the answer to this on the internet, why don’t you have a go as well and come back to see who has posted the answer first!

    • Photo: Paul Stevenson

      Paul Stevenson answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      There’s just not much of it about. The reason why is because it is a pretty heavy element, and the only place heavy elements are made in nature are in supernovas – exploding stars. These are pretty rare events, and so the relative abundance of the different elements favours lighter elements much more.

      So, although that’s the only natural way gold is made – and all the gold on Earth was thrown out into space by a supernova billions of years ago before the Earth formed – there is a way we can make it on Earth, by using nuclear reactions. The simplest way is to take lead – the most abundant heavy element, and collide it with a lighter element (any one will do). This will result in the lead nuclei breaking up, producing other elements, including gold. Unfortunately, this process just works a few atoms at a time and can so only produce extremely small amounts of gold

    • Photo: Kiran Meekings

      Kiran Meekings answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Gold is an element – you can’t really make elements artifically. We have to mine it I’m afraid. Could you imagine how great it would be if we could make it though???

    • Photo: Sarah Mount

      Sarah Mount answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Because gold is an element, which means that it can’t be broken down into simpler metals. So, you can’t make gold out of other things, like you can make steel out of iron and carbon. Back in the middle ages scientists didn’t yet know about the elements (or rather, they didn’t know which chemicals are elements) and people called “Alchemists” would try to find ways of making gold. They thought a thing called the Philosopher’s Stone could turn metals, especially lead, into gold. That’s where the title of the Harry Potter book comes from!

    • Photo: Duncan Murdock

      Duncan Murdock answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      Gold is actually more common than you might think. It occurs as tiny fragments in lots of the worlds rocks and soils. However, in most rocks and soils these fragments are so small and there’s so few of them that once you’ve mined or dug them up, taken out the gold and purified it you’ve spent more money than the gold is worth! Not a good way to become rich I’m afraid. If the price of gold rises, then more gold deposits become worth extracting, and maybe with cheaper and more efficient methods for getting out the gold more will become available too.

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