Dear JP, > compare to a pint bottle of wine (or milk) which is about > a pound.
A pint's a pound the world around. That is, 16 fluid ounces of water is exactly, by definition, a pound of water. Thus there are 8 pounds of water in a gallon. These are pounds avoirdupois, not pounds troy. Non-medicinal consumables are measured in pounds avoirdupois, not in pounds troy. Metals are measured in pounds troy. Black's Law Dictionary 5th Edition says, "troy weight, a weight of twelve ounces to the pound, having its name from Troyes, a city in Aube, France." Avoirdupois is given as, "The name of a system of weights (sixteen ounces to the pound) used in weighing articles other than medicines, metals, and precious stones, so named in distinction from the Troy weight." Oh, that's helpful. Avoir is the French word "to have;" du is French for "from the" and "pois" is "peas." So, literally, this pound avoirdupois is the "pound to have from the peas" rather than the pound from Troyes. Kinda cool. Unless you have to eat a whole pound of peas at a sitting. Peas are not very dense. (Denser than water? I dunno, do they float?) Now, about that rhyme, "a pint's a pound the world around." Easy to remember that a pint weighs a pound, until you ask "a pint of what"? If you have a pint-sized stone, you'll find that it weighs a good deal more than a pound. If it is a dense stone, such as granite, it might weigh five or more pounds. The density matters. The density of water is defined as one. The density of stone varies a great deal by the stone, but is about five in many cases. So the weight in pounds is the volume in pints times the density. What about that pound of gold? Well, I have no feeling for the size of a pound avoirdupois of gold. A pound troy of gold is the size of a stack of twelve gold one ounce coins, more or less. (Rims and stamped features may make the stack of coins a little taller than a solid pound would be.) Would that pound weigh the same as a pound of silver? Yes. A pound troy is a pound troy. So, if I have a silver one ounce coin, can I get the same measurement of volume by simply stacking up twelve of these, or multiplying the height of this silver coin by twelve? Not directly. Silver, of course, is less dense than gold. So, if you have a stack of 12 silver coins, the volume is greater than a stack of 12 gold coins. By how much? By the relative densities of silver and gold. The specific gravity of silver is 10.50 at 20 degrees Centigrade (about 68 Fahrenheit for you Johnny Rebs) gold at the same temperature has a specific gravity of about 18.88. So the stack of gold coins should be smaller than the stack of silver coins. How much smaller? Left as an exercise for the reader. If the specific gravity of water is one, by definition I gather, then the specific gravity of gold tells us that a pound avoirdupois of gold is just more than one-nineteenth the size of a pint of water. Wow. I still have no feel for how big that is, but it isn't huge. Oh, and, by the way, the density of water itself is at a maximum at about 4 degrees C. If the temperature is lowered, water crystallizes, and as we know, ice floats. If the temperature is raised, the density drops, so warm water goes up as well. This creates an interesting economic opportunity in tropical latitudes, where there is surface water at perhaps 35 C and deep water a thousand meters down which is at 4 C. Enough temperature differential to run a thermal cycle engine, an "ocean thermal energy conversion" or OTEC system. While we're considering interesting facts from the 62nd Edition of the Chemical Rubber Company handbook, here are a few more: gold becomes liquid at 1064.43 degrees C and a vapor at 3080 C. Silver melts at 961.93 C and vaporizes at 2212 C. (What are these temperatures in Fahrenheit degrees? Remember that 0 C is 32 F and 20 C is very near 68 F. Knowing the zero, and that there are 100 centigrade degrees for the 180 Fahrenheit degrees between freezing and boiling water, you should be able to work the answers out.) Sterling silver is not pure silver! Yes, "pounds sterling" are not pounds (troy) of pure silver. Rather, sterling is an alloy of 92.5% silver the remainder typically copper. Silver is the best known reflector of visible light, and is a poor reflector of ultraviolet. Its use in analog photography is well known, but it has much less use in digital photography. "In 1939, the price of silver was fixed by the US Treasury at 71 cents per troy ounce, and at 90.5 cents per troy ounce in 1946." From this sentence, Ibid., we see that attempts to fix prices tend to discourage production and lead to shortages which inevitably force the price up. "In November 1961 the US Treasury suspended sales of nonmonetized silver, and the price stabilized for a time at about $1.29, the melt-down value of silver US coins. The Coinage Act of 1965 authorized a change in the metallic composition of the three US subsidiary denominations [half, quarter, tenth (dime)] to clad or composite type coins. This was the first change in US coinage since the monetary system was established in 1792." (Source: 62nd Chemical Rubber Company Handbook.) And thus flagrantly unconstitutional. In 1982, the penny ceased to be 95% copper and 5% zinc and became mostly zinc with a tiny amount of copper on its outside. Electrodeposition? I'm not sure. Has the debasement of the coinage reached its nadir? Not hardly. Last I checked, the nickel was 75% copper and 25% nickel, and will probably be debased to zinc with a nickel coating. Those halves, quarters, and dimes are copper in the center; presumably that will change to zinc by and by. Recently, I saw a big bag of Boggs Sacajawea dollars made from plastic. It is certainly cheaper to make tokens from plastic than to mint coins. But, base metals like aluminum (aluminium to you Brits) have yet to be tried in the USA. I think I've seen an India rupee coin which was aluminum. Just more proof that politicians and bankers cannot be trusted with your money. Regards, Jim http://goldbarterholdings.com/ --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
