Apple's invented a new way to make 18-karat gold

[G_j]

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/final-note/apples-invented-new-way-make-18-karat-gold.

by Kai Ryssdal
Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - 11:51

This final note on the way out, in which we mix popular culture, high tech and metallurgy.

The folks at Slate have been poring over Apple's patent applications for that Apple Watch you may have heard so much about. It turns out, Apple's invented a new way to make 18-karat gold for it's top-of-the-line watches.

It's complicated, and I'm not a scientist, but Apple plans to use something called, "metal matrix composite."

To put it another way, Apple is combining gold with durable materials that don't have much mass, but take up lots of space. That gives it wonderful qualities like lightness and scratch-resistance (normal gold is somewhat soft and prone to damage). And by mass, the final product is still 75 percent gold. But when it's poured into a mold to make an Apple Watch Edition's shell, the other, not-so-precious ingredients take up most of the room. Apple gets to use less gold per cubic centimeter and still call it 18-karat. It gets to stretch its gold out further than, say, Rolex would, to make a watch this size and shape.

It's still actual 18-karat gold technically, but it lets the company — and this is a quote from its patent filing — use "as little gold as possible."

[BlueJazz]

1. Am I the only poster here tonight.? Anyway, Apple gets to screw you twice.

10,000 dollars for a cheap watch ? I think not.

[Major Nikon]

2. Not to mention a Rolex isn't obsolete in 8 months

[awoke_in_2003]

12. Yep...

once my house is paid off, I have sworn that I will buy an Omega Speedmaster Pro. Yeah, it is a mechanical watch that you manually wind- but it was the official watch of Apollo, and I love everything Apollo.

[tridim]

3. So glad I'm not affected by shiny things.

QVC will be all over this.

[Initech]

10. So maybe this is where all the gold contrubuted to "Cash for Gold" has been going.

[PoliticAverse]

4. Apple invented a new way to extract money from people's wallets. n/t

[Agschmid]

5. I'll be buying one... but not that one!

[FLPanhandle]

9. I'll get the low end model

Just waitiing until they are released.

[Agschmid]

14. Me too.

I use a Jawbone everyday and love the features that offers, the Apple watch will just build upon that for me.

[Initech]

6. It's the 2015 equivalent of the Casio calculator watch.

With a price tag 10x that of the original.

[pinboy3niner]

7. Wiki will be updating its definition of 'Fool's Gold' in 5...4...3... nt

[JaneyVee]

8. Life as we know it will be defined into 2 categories:

Pre-Apple watch | Post-Apple watch

[FLPanhandle]

11. Whipped gold

Sort of like whipped cream?

[pinboy3niner]

13. Coolgold!

[Agschmid]

15. If you can't successfully cover yourself in it, it just isn't as cool.

[pinboy3niner]

17. Hey, sailor--what are you suggesting?

[jpak]

16. and my hotdog is 30% water - but it's still a hotdog

HOTDAWG!!!!!!1111

[Xithras]

18. 18 carat gold must be 75% gold by weight.

The contents of the other 25% don't really matter, but they can't screw you on that 75%. If they tried, you can bet the lawyers would be lined up around the block to sue them for misrepresentation.