The Disappearing Spoon Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Elements as Money
Summary:
Chapter 13 is mostly about how the elements were used as currency in the past, elements like gold or silver. Before paper currency was introduced, people would use metals, such as gold and silver, as a form of money. The author first starts by mentioning the myth of King Midas with his ability to be able to transform anything to gold with a single touch. However, Kean explains how instead back then gold could have been confused with brass because of their similar appearances. Brass and gold are both shiny metals and could easily been mixed up all the time. Kean elaborates that the location of King Midas’ kingdom itself can be used as evidence to support the theory of brass being confused for gold. There were many mines, mines having a lot of zinc, located near King Midas’ kingdom; thus, the zinc and copper could have been mixed to appear as it was gold, but in reality it was probably brass.
The other then continues by elaborating on a gold rush that began when Irishman found gold by accident in the Australian outback in 1896. Because of that, many people desiring to become rich with gold went to that area and began looking for gold. There was a bunch of iron pyrite right around where they searched for gold, so many were fooled into thinking that's iron pyrite was real gold. Iron pyrite looks a lot like gold because it displays the same color and shine of gold; the only difference is that gold is valuable and iron pyrite isn't. The same thing happened when gold was yet again found in a different area. This time there was an abundance of tellurium, which was considered worthless until they figured out that the tellurium could lead to gold. The author then transitions into talking about today's counterfeit money and how the element europium aids in finding this fake money. They use europium and fluorescing to make a dye in which they mix to the european money. Then they use a laser to see if the money is actually real through the color. Kean ends the chapter by discussing the value that aluminum had in the past.
Reflection:
This chapter was full of many interesting stories and facts. I was beyond surprised when Kean mentioned that aluminum was once more valuable than gold because we use aluminum in our everyday life. I don't think I can actually imagine a world where people preferred aluminum over gold. I really enjoyed the different perspective that Kean gave about the story of Midas. Because of the way he explained it, now I'm amazed because now I wonder if it was really brass and not gold. This chapter also made me realize that we can easily confused elements by just observing their appearances.

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