ORIGIN STORY

Presenting the general properties and fascinating history of platinum

Precious metals, known as noble metals, have amazing origin stories. We are talking better than Marvel superheroes… Thanks in part to pop music (remember Moby?), many of us are familiar with the fact that we are all made of stars. Indeed, everything from helium to iron is forged in the hearts of stars. These elements are the products of fusion reactions, essentially. Well precious metals go one better, and the platinum group takes it to another level.

The alchemist’s dream of transforming matter is just a matter of existing; if stars exist, matter transformation is happening. Fusion turns hydrogen into helium as if it was the most natural thing in the universe. In fact, it is. One moment, hydrogen is going about its business as it has since the Big Bang, and then gravity invites it to a party and it meets a nice neutron (or two) and transforms into helium. Well, the poetic licence there is our own, and no one approved it. Please send your brickbats my way. Essentially though, that is how fusion works (minus a proper explanation of the strong force) but its transformative powers do not go past iron.