Why do people use gold to mint money?

Why did gold become the standard element for casting money in ancient times? Why not copper, platinum or argon?

According to Khimia , Sanat Kumar, chairman of the Department of Chemical Technology, Columbia University (USA), said that to make money, an element needs to have 4 'standards' and can use these 4 criteria to eliminate gradually. All elements in the periodic table.

First of all , it cannot be a gas because no one can hold the gas to carry the bowel. This standard has knocked out all elements on the right side of the periodic table, including inert gases.

Secondly , it cannot be highly reactive and corrosive elements, such as lithium, for example, ignite when exposed to water or air. Iron is rusty. This standard removed 38 elements in the periodic table.

Gold is the only material that meets all four criteria for casting into money.

Third , it cannot be radioactive. Because or because of radiation, your money disappears at some point or it can kill you. This standard leaves the list of two elements that lie in two places in the periodic table called the lantanid array and actinid . In reference to this standard, a series of elements must automatically be removed from the list.

By these three criteria, the periodic table has only about 30 elements to 'select' . But an element that can be used to make money, must be beautiful, durable and meet the fourth standard : It must be quite rare to be of high value but also not too rare and extremely hard to find. This standard made only 4 elements remain. According to Kumar, there are 4 elements: rodi, palladium, silver and gold.

So why is gold still the ultimate winning element?

According to Kumar, although the old silver was also a major metal for minting, because it was easily tarnished (sometimes blackened), it was also excluded from the list. Rodi and Palladi were not discovered until 1800, so the ancient people did not know them.

Finally, only gold and platinum remain. But if you want to cast any metal, you must melt it, and then platinum must be heated to 1,600 degrees C to melt. In ancient times, Mr. Kumar said, no kiln could achieve that temperature.

So gold is left as a single candidate.It was rare enough that not everyone could get it, hard, but easy to melt, both rusty and non-toxic . It deserves a standard for making money. In ancient times, many countries only printed money based on the amount of gold in the treasury.