Density Best
Density Best
What is the best way to calculate/find density of loose material e.g gold ore?
The density of gold is first known to have been investigated by Archimedes circa 210 BC in the famous story of where the King of Syracuse asked Archimedes to find out if his crown was made of real gold. Archimedes determined this by submerging the crown and a piece of gold with the same weight in water and observing how much water was displaced.
This led to the definition of density, Density"="mass/volume. As found through that equation, the density of gold is 19,300 kg/m3.
The standard units for density are kg/m3 but density can also be recorded as specific gravity which is the density of the material divided by the density of water (1000 kg/m3). Specific gravity of gold (then recorded as 19.2) was important to the gold miners of the mid-1800s for when they needed to determine whether they had gold or fool's gold since they did not have any quality measuring devices. The high density of gold also allowed a common form of gold accumulation called panning. This was where gold-carrying water was taken into the pan and shaken. The less dense sediments would float to the top and the very dense gold dust would sink to the bottom where it could be collected. Even though this was a slow means of getting gold and was impractical to do year-round in places like Klondike where the water was frozen nine months per year, panning to step one for prospectors when deciding where to stake a claim.
Density is equivalent to the mass per unit volume with the given equation:
ρ = m / V
It is commonly measured in kilograms per meter or grams per cubic centimeter.
The importance of the density of gold dates all the way back to the mid 1800s during the gold rush. Various mining techniques were developed by gold miners to search for gold in the bottom of rivers, lakes, and oceans. Panning was the most common form of gold mining because anybody could do it. Miners would swirl sand from the water in a pan until the gold flakes were separated from other sediments it was attached to. The gold flakes would fall to the bottom of the pan in the water. It was relatively easy for a miner to determine whether he had found gold or not. A miner would take a questionable piece of gold along with a piece of real gold and drop it in his pan filled with water. The real gold would fall to the bottom of the pan before the questionable piece of gold, commonly iron pyrite (fool's gold).
Dr. H
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