All the Discovered Gold in the World (in one chart)

Source - Visual Capitalist

The source of this graphic - Kalo Gold - appears to be a gold speculation company focusing on Fiji and British Columbia. I haven't the foggiest idea whether they're a reputable company or some sort of scammers' paradise.

I do know that I like their inforgraphic on where the gold in the world currently is - both above and underground.

Long term, I wonder when it'll become profitable to mine for gold in our landfills - especially the last few years' layers including electronic equipment.

How It's Made Computer Recyling Gold

I'm actually a little surprised to see this type of recycling happening in what looks like a European country. Admittedly, the video seemingly does what it can to avoid showing us anything to
distinguish what country this recycling is happening in - no writing on much other than the forklift, no spoken language - at best it looks like it might be a Northern European country. Everything I'd heard was that this mostly took place only in countries with far less strict environmental and worker safety regulations.

I love that they're using aqua regia to dissolve the gold.

Then we get some outstanding electrochemistry going on with electrochemical reduction growing copper then silver then gold crystals. Phenomenal stuff (mostly in animation, admittedly).

Trigger warning - 4:15 - Corny joke relating fish and chips to computer chips.

Colored golds

Yeah, I don't really understand that graph/diagram/visualization.

I was looking around on the web about the various alloys of gold that can produce different colors and happened upon that diagram up there.

So, here's my question, how do I read the graph?

Like, let's say I wanted to make a gold that would be as yellow as the Y in the word yellowish on that diagram.

My reading of that alloy is that it would be about 55% silver,  50% copper, and about 50% gold.

That math doesn't seem to add up.

Can anybody tell me how to read this graph?

Sure, there's a bunch of info on the Colored Gold wikipedia page, but nothing there is terribly helpful either.

Solid Gold Lego Han Solo vs Darth Vader - untold Star Wars story

I'm not a Star Wars guy. I am, however, a Lego and molten metal kinda guy. I have a couple of Lego casts in tin via the Lego ice cube trays, but tin is a lot different from gold.

Gold is something to brag about and to throw down in a comparison.

Gold is something else.

If anybody ever wants to thank their favorite material science teacher for all the work he (or she, but definitely he this time) does on his or her favorite material science video blog, a gold Lego figure would be a fine choice.

Might I recommend a gold Benny instead, though?

Apple Watch (various materials)

That is a straight up gorgeous piece of film making and advertising.

The sights of the aluminum being forged, poured, machined, anodized, and finished are absolutely stunning. Go watch it again before you start looking at the science of what's happening.

We get the full gamut of processing (forging, machining) and materials (metals, alloys, ceramic - zirconia - beads for the finish).

Beautiful...

And that doesn't even being to touch on the gold and steel videos that I'm putting after the jump.

All of these are available on Apple's watch craftsmanship webpage along with text and photos of the zirconia chosen for the crystal covers, the ion-x glass for the Sport face (potassium ion soaked to increase strength), or the sapphire facing for the Watch and Watch Edition editions (that sounds incredibly stupid to read).

There is also a webpage from Atomic Delights (a blog with sadly only three posts in two years - better quality than quantity, I guess) that does a far better job breaking down the three videos and speculating on some of the science therein than I ever could.