Category Science

Silver played an important role in the history of Argentina, a South American country at the bottom of the continent. The name Argentina comes from the Latin ‘argentum’, meaning silver. ‘Argentina’ therefore means the ‘land of silver’. But how did this country get its name? Let us take a look.

In the early 1500s, Spanish conquistadors had heard tales about a land ruled by a White King that was rich in silver. They set on a voyage up a river in search of this wealthy kingdom. They discovered a group of native Indians, who presented them with so many silver objects that the river was named ‘Rio de la Plata’ or Silver River. In time, the country itself was called La Plata which means ‘silver’ in Spanish. When the rule of Spain ended, the name was changed to Argentina, from the Latin word ‘argentum.’

In olden days, silver was used to make coins in many kingdoms. The practice of using silver coins slowly gained popularity. But silver was a rare metal. Later it was found out that the cost of silver used for making these coins was a lot higher than the value of these coins. But, there was a solution to this problem-add another element to silver!

            Finally, after a lot of experiments, it was found out that copper could be mixed with silver to make coins that looked like silver, which was much cheaper than the older practice. Since then, copper-silver alloy is used to make silver coins.

Today, if a silver coin is actually made of pure silver, the metal would cost more than 20 times the value of the coin. However coins of pure silver are still available. People buy them as an investment.

We have heard many stories of people drinking from silver cups and eating from a silver platter. While we use a glass or steel tumbler to drink water, many of our ancestors used tumblers made of silver. More than a practice that showed off wealth, this had something to do with hygiene. Silver has excellent anti-bacterial properties. It kills harmful bacteria in water. In fact, a few millionths of one gram, is enough to purify a litre of water! Our smart forefathers knew this, and that is why they used to store water in silver vessels, and drink from silver cups.

Even today, some people drop a few silver coins in their drinking water to purify it. Though we are sure about the anti-bacterial properties of silver, it is always safer to boil water before drinking it as there are so many germs today.

In our society, gold is seen as a symbol of wealth. Most of the gold that we see around us is in the form of jewellery and other artefacts. But gold has more desirable qualities than its beauty which makes it a valuable metal in the industry.

The properties of gold make it vital for the manufacture of components used in a wide range of electronic products including computers, telephones, cellular phones, and home appliances. Gold is used for shielding satellites and spacecraft from solar radiation because it is an excellent reflector of heat.

Gold is a vital element in medical research; it is even used in the direct treatment of arthritis and some other diseases. Gold is also widely used in dentistry; though getting a gold tooth to replace a natural one is rather expensive!

In some Asian countries, gold is used in food and drink, from fruit jelly to coffee. Some sweets are covered with gold leaf.

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You might have seen jewellery advertisements talking about something called carats. But what are carats? A carat is the proportion of gold in an alloy. But why do we mix gold with other elements? Let us take a look.

Pure gold is very soft. It is not possible to make jewellery and other artefacts with pure gold as it is not hard enough. Gold in its pure form breaks easily. So, it is often mixed with copper, silver or other metals to make it easier to work with. Pure gold is always 24 carat. But, most of the jewellery that we wear is made of 22 carat gold. If there is a higher proportion of copper or silver, the gold may be 18, 14, or even 9 carat gold.

The cheapest jewellery will be made of 9 carat gold, and the most expensive, of 22 carat gold. The greater the amount of gold in the mixture, the more expensive it will be.

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Archimedes is famous for the Archimedes Principle, which states that when an object is immersed in a fluid, it will displace a volume of fluid equal to the volume of the portion of the object immersed. There is an interesting tale behind this principle.

Archimedes used this principle to prove that a jeweller was cheating the king. The king suspected that a solid gold crown he ordered was partly made of silver. To find out if it was true, Archimedes took two pieces of pure gold and pure silver of the weight of the crown. He then immersed the gold, the silver, and the crown – one after the other – in a container filled to the brim with water. He then measured the volume of water that overflowed with each material.

Archimedes found that the crown displaced more water than the gold, but less than the silver. This proved that the crown contained some metal other than gold or silver, and that the jeweller had stolen some of the gold given to him, and replaced it with a cheaper metal!

Picture Credit : Google