Measure
Carat purity is measured as 24 times the purity by mass:
where
- is the carat rating of the material,
- is the mass of pure gold or platinum in the material, and
- is the total mass of the material.
Therefore, 24-Carat gold is fine (99.9% Au w/w), 18-Carat gold is 18 parts gold 6 parts another metal (forming an alloy), 12-Carat gold is 12 parts gold (12 parts another metal), and so forth.
In England, the carat was divisible into four grains, and the grain was divisible into four quarts. For example, a gold alloy of fineness (that is, 99.2% purity) could have been described as being 23-carat, 3-grain, 1-quart gold.
The Carat system is increasingly being complemented or superseded by the millesimal fineness system, in which the purity of precious metals is denoted by parts per thousand of pure metal in the alloy.
Read more about this topic: Carat (purity)
Famous quotes containing the word measure:
“Both the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it. Both, as a measure of their creation, have always had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos.... This cannot be an easy life.”
—J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967)
“If the pulse of his people shall beat calmly under this experiment, another and another will be tried till the measure of despotism be filled up.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Trying to love your children equally is a losing battle. Your children’s scorecards will never match your own. No matter how meticulously you measure and mete out your love and attention, and material gifts, it will never feel truly equal to your children. . . . Your children will need different things at different times, and true equality won’t really serve their different needs very well, anyway.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)