Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[wzambon]

Interesting gold trivia...

Gold indestructible? Well... almost.

The only known dissolver of gold is a strong acid known as aqua regia.... a mixture of HNO3 (nitric) and HCL (hydrochloric) acids.

There is a story- that as the Germans invaded Norway, Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate, decided not to try to flee with his gold medals from Stockholm.

Instead, he mixed up some aqua regia, dissolved the medals, set the mixture on a shelf in the lab and left.

At the end of the war, he returned, was able to extract the gold from the mixture and had the medals recast.

Bill Z