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A comment on King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms. Parent comment

Re:King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms by yk on Friday June 03, 2016 @04:54PM (#11833213)
Gold was also the heaviest known element until the middle of the 19th century, which means that all impurities swim at the top and so it is easy to purify simply by melting it. Plus you can assay it by a touchstone. So there are a lot properties that make Gold the best metal for coins.
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Re:King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms by ridgeguy on Saturday June 04, 2016 @10:04AM (#11836356)
This only applies to impurities that don't dissolve in, or alloy with gold. For example, silver and copper cannot be removed from gold simply by melting because they form solution alloys that don't segregate in the molten state. Some solution alloys of gold include crown gold (silver, copper, gold) and white gold (palladium, nickel, gold).
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Re:King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms by yoodenvranx on Friday June 03, 2016 @06:21PM (#11833693)
This is actually a crucial point in the later parts of Neal Stephensons Quicksilver/Baroque cycle.
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Re:King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms by sambe on Saturday June 04, 2016 @05:13PM (#11838067)
Planet Money did an interesting episode on this, taking the opposite perspective: properties of other elements that made them less suitable.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/07/131363098/the-t...

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