Gold

[Crafter_Man]

@Chronos

Only slightly, though

Depends on how you look at it.

Pure gold has a resistivity of 2.44 X 10[sup]-8[/sup] Ω•m at 20 °C, while pure copper has a resistivity of 1.68 X 10[sup]-8[/sup] Ω•m.

So on the one hand, the resistivity of gold is only 0.0000000076 Ω•m higher than the resistivity of copper. That’s not much.

But on the other hand, the resistivity of gold is 45% higher than the resistivity of copper.

Let’s say you have 8 meters of 20 AWG gold wire and 8 meters of 20 AWG copper wire, and each wire is carrying 3 amps. The gold wire will dissipate 3.39 watts of heat while the copper wire will dissipate 2.34 watts of heat. So the gold wire will dissipate about 1 watt more than the copper wire.

[Melchior]

To get back to my question, how much gold would have to be found (not extracted from ore, but found in a big lump) for it to be as cheap as silver?

[Chimera]

As I said, they produce 800 million ounces of Silver per year. For gold to be the same price, I would expect the production level would need to be similar. That is, about 25,000 metric tons per year. Since one year of that production is almost half the estimated ‘mine-able gold’ in the world, this would mean some pretty hefty deposits would need to be discovered.

[Melchior]

@Chimera

As I said, they produce 800 million ounces of Silver per year. For gold to be the same price, I would expect the production level would need to be similar. That is, about 25,000 metric tons per year. Since one year of that production is almost half the estimated ‘mine-able gold’ in the world, this would mean some pretty hefty deposits would need to be discovered.

Yeah, but how much? I don’t mean ore, but in a big clump.

I mean, some guy digging with a backhoe in Peoria Illinois uncovers a gold ‘nugget’ 75 feet across and 100 feet deep.