OK, so I've been experimenting with Wolfram's Alpha thingy. Useful if 
you happen to want to know how long 10^15 seconds is, if you want a 
graph quickly, or if you want to look up the electrical resistence of 
silicon. Not much use for anything else.

I did find some interesting information though...

Alpha claims that the current trading price for gold is approximately 


t. (I had no idea Platinum was so expensive!)

I tried to get similar data for other substances, but Wolfram's "data 
curators" evidently haven't got that far yet. I did find a website 
though that claims that the London Metal Exchange has the following prices:

   Sn $14.325 / Kg
   Ni $13.770 / Kg
   Cu $ 4.776 / Kg
   Pd $ 1.530 / Kg
   Zn $ 1.509 / Kg
   Al $ 1.384 / Kg

(Not sure why the LME lists prices in USD, but still...)

This table is completely baffling to me. As everybody knows, Alunimium 
is about the most expensive metal you can buy (except for weird stuff 
like Titanium, or the "precious metals" like Gold or Silver), and Lead 
is about the cheapest metal there is. Except that this table says no 
such thing!! o_O

Hmm, I wonder why Iron isn't listed? A rather common metal, after all...

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On Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:32:36 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> OK, so I've been experimenting with Wolfram's Alpha thingy. Useful if
> you happen to want to know how long 10^15 seconds is, if you want a
> graph quickly, or if you want to look up the electrical resistence of
> silicon. Not much use for anything else.

I've found it to be useful for figuring out caloric information for 
recipes.

Jim

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Invisible wrote:
> Alpha claims that the current trading price for gold is approximately 
> £600 "per Troy ounch" (whatever the hell that is).

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=troy+ounce

 > And Platinum is about £744 / oz
> t. (I had no idea Platinum was so expensive!)

Yep.

> (Not sure why the LME lists prices in USD, but still...)

Because it's a metal commodity exchange, and those metals are sold in 
dollars. Just like oil, for example.

> This table is completely baffling to me. As everybody knows, Alunimium 

> is about the most expensive metal you can buy (except for weird stuff 
> like Titanium, or the "precious metals" like Gold or Silver), and Lead 

> is about the cheapest metal there is. Except that this table says no 
> such thing!! o_O

These are futures markets, not stores. You're not buying the metals. You'
re 
buying futures on the metals. That's one reason you'll see funky pricing.


Plus, I don't think Aluminum is that expensive. It used to be expensive 
before they figured out how to extract it from common compounds (which is
 
why the Washington Monument has a cap of aluminum), and it's probably 
expensive for its weight and structural properties (you don't build 
airplanes out of nickel or tin and it's more expensive than heavier thing
s 
like iron and brass), but I don't think it's expensive on an absolute bas
is 
or they wouldn't make aluminum foil and aluminum cans from it.

> Hmm, I wonder why Iron isn't listed? A rather common metal, after all..
.

"""
Welcome to the London Metal Exchange
The London Metal Exchange is the world's premier non-ferrous metals marke
t.
"""

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4a23e686@news.povray.org...

> This table is completely baffling to me.

Dated, but still a good read:

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/metal_prices/

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> As everybody knows, Alunimium 
> is about the most expensive metal you can buy

  As everybody knows? Aluminium is used for almost everything, from
cookware to car and airplane chassis.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> As everybody knows, Alunimium 
>> is about the most expensive metal you can buy
> 
>   As everybody knows? Aluminium is used for almost everything, from
> cookware to car and airplane chassis.

Last I heard, airplanes aren't exactly "cheap", nor are cars, and 
cookware made of alunimium rather than steel is vastly more expensive. 
(Ditto for computer cases.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Last I heard, airplanes aren't exactly "cheap", nor are cars, and 
> cookware made of alunimium rather than steel is vastly more expensive. 

  That only tells that steel is cheaper than aluminum, not that aluminum
is super-expensive.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:24:51 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> Last I heard, airplanes aren't exactly "cheap", nor are cars,

Airplanes and cars are expensive, but not primarily because of raw material
costs I think.


> and cookware made of alunimium rather than steel is vastly more  
> expensive.

The only reasonably useful aluminium cookware I have seen are frying pans,  
and those are always Teflon-coated. Even so, I have not found them to be  
more expensive than their cast-iron counterparts. In fact, the cheapest  
ones are typically aluminium.


> (Ditto for computer cases.)

The same goes for computer cases; the cheapest ones are aluminium.



-- 
FE

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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> The only reasonably useful aluminium cookware I have seen are frying 
> pans, and those are always Teflon-coated.

http://www.vita-mix.com/household/products/neova/

Highly recommended, btw. :-)

Aluminum conducts heat almost as well as copper and is less prone to 
corrosion and is lighter, so it's a good choice for cookware.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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On Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:06:29 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>
> http://www.vita-mix.com/household/products/neova/

Yeah, I have seen multi-layer cooking pots, but I would tend to classify  
those as steel pots. I will admit, though, that there may be sufficient  
aluminium in there to noticeably affect the material cost.

As an aside, I do own several "pure" aluminium pots. They work fine, but  
they get ugly with old age.


> Highly recommended, btw. :-)
>
> Aluminum conducts heat almost as well as copper and is less prone to  
> corrosion and is lighter, so it's a good choice for cookware.

I prefer iron; cookware that lets you cook *and* work out at the same time.



-- 
FE

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