Why doesn’t gold tarnish? A simple answer might be that it’s a so-called “noble metal”—its atoms don’t like to chemically react with others. But a more complex answer also answers *why* gold atoms are so unreactive. Some of it is due to special relativity, and some is due to a phenomenon called reconstruction.
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Dwight?
0:04 – "dig a nugget of it out of the ground". Quite a tongue twister.
Did somebody say hexagons?
😊
"Relativistic mass" is no longer a concept used in Relativity.
So still the bestagons?
Not sure how Matt Parker is gonna feel about this news. I feel like everyone is going to be bombarding the science and math world with “hexagons are bestagons” again and man, Matt Parker hates that phrase. It makes him physically groan. It’s amusing.
You're a he? Thanks, glad we cleared thet up before a video. As if anyone really cares about pronouns for a science video.
The one question I was hoping would get answered, what does tarnished gold look like?
Hexagons are the bestagons
I clicked on the video to add the the hexagons are the bestagons
Because tarnished gold is sinful
Hexagons are the bestagons
Arise now, ye tarnished
There is no gold in Eldin Ring
i'm interested in how gold helps make deuterium oxide now (such a dramatic name for heavy water lmao)
Hexagons are "heating water to spin a turbine" of nature, it's always hexagons
NOT AGAIN 😨😨
7:51 wait… does water ice or graphite "tarnish"? Wwwwaaaaaittttttt
Gold that never tarnished, gold to resist any flame.
Ohh that's why graphite doesn't tarnishes either
Claim checked: gold's yellow color is literally a relativity artifact. Its 6s electrons orbit at ~half light speed, which contracts those orbitals and opens the 5d-6s gap so gold absorbs blue light. Take relativity away and gold would look like silver. Inert + Einstein = zero tarnish.
Somebody alert @cgpgray lol
Some tarnishes can occasionally be more than meets the eyes, some of them are spontaneously generated ceramic layers due to oxidation, like what's on Aluminum metal, that better resists further chemical attacks that you gotta intentionally scratch or rub into it with Mercury or Gallium in order to attack it directly, some acids can remove that protective ceramic rust layer though. Rusts has so many and diverse interesting properties which some are more protective than destructive. In fact anodization is technically a controlled rusting process that puts on durable ceramic layers on Titanium and Aluminum.