First decade of 21st Century: Aurum is golden and Silver is such Argentum!

So we call 'em precious metals

From the engineering prospective, in particular electrical/electronic engineering, Silver (Ag) is a miracle metal due to its exceptionally high electrical and thermal conductivity. But as in case of other precious metals (in particular, Gold) its popularity and market value is linked not to just its chemical/physical properties, industrial demands and jewelry production needs, but is deeply rooted in centuries-strong perceptions of being the “true money”, the ultimate benchmarks and hedging instruments against inflation [15], caused by relaxed fiscal discipline and excessive emission of “paper currencies”.

On the factual side

Silver (chemical symbol Ag, coming from the Latin Argentum, which stands for “shining”, or “grey”) is a precious metal with atomic number 47 and density at room temperature (i.e., 20 degree C) about 10.5 g/square sm. Due to excellent electrical conductivity (its resistivity at normal “room” temperature is about 15.9 nOhm*m) it found tremendous use in electronic and electric devices. It has exceptionally good thermal conductivity of 429 W/(K*m). Melting point temperature is: 962 C/1763 K [1]. Interestingly, the only known materials with higher thermal conductivity are diamonds (more than 900 W/(K*m)) and graphenes (more than 4000 W/(K*m)) .

Gold is a most popular precious metal with chemical symbol Au (from Latin Aurum, which stands for “shining dawn”), atomic number 79 and density about 19.3 g/square sm. Its electrical resistivity at room temperature (20 degree C) is about 22.1 nOhm*m, which is slightly higher than of Ag, thus making is less conductive. It’s thermal conductivity of 318 W/(K*m), though less than the Ag, is still rather high. Melting point temperature: 1064 C/1947 F (higher than Ag) [2]. Gold is significantly more expensive that Silver; the Gold/Silver ratio varies over the time and is considered the important economic metric.

Platinum (chemical symbol Pt) is another popular precious metal with atomic number of 78, density at room temperature (20 degree C) about 19.8 g/square sm (close to Gold), electric resistivity of about 105.0 nOhm*m (thus having the conductivity much worse than Gold, or Silver), and thermal conductivity of 71.6 W/(K*m) [3], which is also much worse than of Gold and Silver. Melting point temperature is: 1768 C/3215 F, higher than Gold and Silver, which makes it excellent contender for the high-temperature thermo-couple devices manufacturing. Platinum is more expensive than Gold and Silver.

Palladium (symbol Pd, atomic number 46) belongs to the platinum group of metals (PGM) and is also considered a precious metal, often used by US mint to issue various collectible commemorative coins, priced somewhere in between of Gold and Silver. It physical density of 10.4 g/square sm is close to Ag. Its electrical resistivity (105.4 nOhm*m) and thermal conductivity (71.8 W/(K*m)) are very close to that of Pt. Melting point temperature is: 1555 C/2831 F [4].

Rhodium is another inert metal of platinum group (symbol Rh, atomic number 45), with physical density of 12.4 g/square sm, close to Ag. Its low electrical resistivity (43.3 nOhm*m) and good thermal conductivity (150 W/(K*m)) [5], though not as good as Gold and Silver. Exceptionally high melting point temperature of: 1964 C/3567 F (higher than all previously discussed metals) makes it excellent contender for thermo-couple device manufacturing (in conjunction with Pt).

Precious metals discussed above have tremendous industrial value and are widely used in jewelry manufacturing. As it was stated in the opening paragraph, two of them, namely Gold and Silver, through the recorded history of mankind were perceived as the “ultimate” or “true” money; these perception mostly defined market value of these particular couple. At the time of political/economic instability people as individuals and the institutionalized investors as well tend to accumulate the Gold/Silver assets as the hedge against the capital markets manipulation and “paper currency” inflation.

Bullion coins made of precious metals became increasingly popular in the last several years, mostly due to high market volatility and inflation concerns. In particular, such items as American Eagles made of Silver, Gold, Platinum and Palladium by US Mint [6], which are beautifully designed, available in both uncirculated and proof conditions and are highly respected items among collectors and investors. Other popular bullions include Canadian Gold, Silver (claimed gold and silver purity of 0.9999), and Platinum Maple Leafs [7]; variety of Australian Gold bullions (in particular, beautifully designed Lunar series), and the South African Krugerrands [8]. Gold coins from Europe are rather popular as well, in particular, Austrian Gold Ducat [9], British Gold Sovereign [10].

Precious metals annualized performance for the first decade of our 21st century as estimated by using the calculators and computational technique described in [11, 12] and Starting/Ending prices as per [13, 14] (SPX – Starting Price, USD as per Dec 29th , 2000 and EPX – Ending Price,USD as per Dec 31st, 2010):

Metal Performance % SPX / EPX

Silver (Ag) 20.94% $4.575 / $ 30.63
Gold (Au) 17.86% $272.65 / $1410.25
Platinum (Pt) 10.98% $611 / $1731
Palladium (Pd) -1.86% $954 / $791

Well, based on this numeric estimate (numbers are rounded), Silver ended the 1st decade of our century as an absolute performance champion among other folks in this precious crowd. Our congrats to the chemical symbol Ag :)

References

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