Saw this video about gold, it’s chemical structure and malleability. I still don’t understand why gold is worth anything at all……
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Almost every element reacts readily with other materials to form compounds. This is why when you mine iron for instance, you don’t dig up long bars of iron, you dig up ore, that has iron and other elements combined that you have to separate out.
Gold, and a few other materials, don’t like to react with other materials quite as easily, this is why they are so shiny when you find them, and because they don’t react with oxygen, they don’t tarnish and they continue to stay shiny. This has caused Gold and other materials like it, to be seen as an aberration, or something to be considered special. This on top of its relative rarity, owning this wonderful shiny metal, is seen as a status symbol. (Not to mention that unlike most metals, it is not grey)
It is only in the modern era that we have seen industrial uses for a material with low reactivity, in things like spaceflight, and electronics to name a couple.
TLDR: Ooo shiny rock! I am special with shiny rock! A long line of traditions, and good with electronics.
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