tIt is doubtful if there is any person who does not know gold! Everyone is fond of gold, whether it is for use in medicine or decorations or jewellery or payment or for investment. Its distinct everlasting deep rich yellow brilliance never fails to attract people from all walks of life. The natural dense yellow metal has been known to man since time immemorial. Its value is undisputed, its neutral properties unique. Amazingly its refining process is as old as human history! Its ability of being malleable to the finest thin foils makes a popular metal in some industries. Yet, what a human folly? To spend vast resources on its search, purification, accumulation and eventually have it locked up in bank vaults or Fort Knox or warehouses.

It is a highly sought-after precious metal that for many centuries has been used as money, a store of value and in jewellery. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks or river banks and underground "veins" and in alluvial deposits. It is one of the coinage metals. It is a dense, soft, shiny, yellow metal, and is the most malleable and ductile of the metals.

Gold forms the basis for a monetary standard used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Its Modern industrial uses include dentistry and electronics, where gold has traditionally found use because of its good resistance to oxidative corrosion.

Chemically, gold is a trivalent and univalent transition metal. Gold does not react with most chemicals, but is attacked by chlorine, fluorine, aqua regia and cyanide. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys. In particular, gold is insoluble in nitric acid, which will dissolve most other metals. Nitric acid has long been used to confirm the presence of gold in items, and this is the origin of the colloquial term "acid test," referring to a gold standard test for genuine value.
Properties of Gold?
Symbol: Au
Melting Point: 1064 deg C
Density: 19.3
Atomic Number 79