Appearance
The colour of electrum is pale yellow or yellowish-white and the name is a Latinized form of the Greek word ἤλεκτρον (elektron) mentioned in the Odyssey referring to a metallic substance consisting of gold alloyed with silver. The same word was also used for the substance amber, likely because of the pale yellow colour of certain varieties, and it is from amber's electrostatic properties that the modern English words "electron" and "electricity" are derived. Electrum was often referred to as white gold in ancient times but could be more accurately described as "pale gold". The modern use of the term white gold usually concerns gold alloyed with any one or a combination of nickel, silver, platinum and palladium to produce a silver-colored gold.
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Famous quotes containing the word appearance:
“The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)