Glory

As the market statistics (note, not 'markets) fall across the boards and bourses, I feel happy. I feel happy whenever these funny things happen because they amuse me and I am fortunate not to be directly involved, thus fulfilling at least two meanings of the word 'happy'.

What has always bemused me from a rational perspective is the way people sink huge funds into gold and diamonds. Gold is not particularly rare; there are 200,000,000 kilos of it lying around in the world today. Diamonds are not particularly rare; there are so many of them (and so many kinds and varieties and ways of making them) that it seems odd to think of them as stable investments.

What distinguishes these two elemental resources is chemical stability (for gold) and physical stability (for diamonds), you might think. But the most important quality they have is attractiveness. Gold is golden; diamonds scintillate when cut aright. They have wonderful optical behaviours under the right conditions. Beauty, for them, is not just skin deep; they are beauty crystallized, whether as metallic crystals or covalent crystals.

And yet, their elevation causes anomalies in value for other worthy substances. Take ruthenium, a harder and more durable cousin of gold. It is tough and chemically resistant, beautiful in a cold silvery way, more silver than silver and more valuable in chemistry. It is selling for USD170 per ounce right now, a tenth of gold's current price. But there are only 5,000,000 kilos of it lying around. The same kind of problem exists for tanzanite; it's a more beautiful and much rarer stone than diamond, and once it's been mined out of the three mines in Tanzania, there will be none left. But diamond, that simple structure every high-school chemistry student must know, is made in ton-loads by geological activity.

So what is the weight of glory? The glory of the world passes, and yet we invest in it. The glory of man is like the flower of grass; the grass fades and the flowers fall, and the wind blows them all away. What is seen is only what there is to be seen; what is unseen abides forever.

Aureate

Gold and glow. Not all that glisters is gold, or glistens, for that matter. The only difference between one state and the other is the idea of quality. Yesterday, I asked a student: "What is the difference between the intrinsic value of gold and its extrinsic value?"

It took quite some time to figure it out, and even then, nobody was satisfied.

Jade and Gold

Sometimes, you go past things that used to be part of your life and they surprise you because these things, now no longer part of your life, are still part of your memory. I remember the idea of jade and gold as a very wise lady once explained it to me; these things were precious and fine and beautiful, also resilient and tough, also symbols of culture, richness, depth. To be associated with these things was to be associated with the excellence of a world that was passing, and yet still remained.

Since that chat with the dancer who must now be in her late 70s (!) I have learnt more and more to appreciate those who are associated with such ideals. Many of them are (or were) dancers; many of them have the finest minds and the best manners of all the people I know. The thing is that these two substances are emblematic of a particular breed of overseas Chinese, a strand which left the country early and yet retained an stronger sense of heritage than those who left later.

As a chemist, I've come to appreciate these substances for their material properties as well as for their cultural significance.

Jade is beautiful, but also very hard and tough. The ancient Chinese used it for axeheads and armour; it is as hard as quartz, but its interlocking microcrystalline matrix makes it tough enough to turn a spearpoint. It was the kevlar of its age. The range of colour from green to red to brown to purple comes from the presence of transition metal ions, mainly iron(II) and iron(III).

Gold is beautiful, but also the most flexible, ductile, malleable and conductive of all metals. It can be spun into thread or flattened into foil, drawn into wire or used as paint. It is nearly incorruptible, and not dissolved by anything in nature at normal temperatures. It does form alloys with other metals over a longer period of time; these alloys are valuable for other reasons.

Passing by the Palace of Jade and Gold, I remember when it was on the Emerald Hill. I learnt many things in those years, and I realise that I still feel sad for what has passed away forever.

Gold

Yes, there's too much gold around. Actually, I've always wondered why people put so much in gold. The fact is that so much gold is hoarded around the world that if you wanted to reduce the value of it, you could almost do it at will. Gold, once the most precious of metals and the touchstone of wealth, is now just a glistering illusion.

Honours Day

"Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!"

Thus spake the apostle, and have we any reason to mistrust his words? It is said that in a great house there are many vessels, some of gold and silver and honourable in disposition, some of clay and wood and made for humble purposes. Yet besides honour, there is use; for there are things of honour with no use and things of use that we do not honour.

"Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man," said his brother apostle.

Those apostles were really good. Good as gold. And it is quite clear from their words that there are two meanings of silver and gold (and neither has to do with my own pocket-money funds). The first connotes nobility of value and use; it is used to speak of the purity of divine purpose and of the foundations built in our lives by the workings of the Spirit. The second is what another apostle calls 'filthy lucre', the cancerous desire for scoring more worthless points than our fellow humans.

Today I felt happy that young people were being honoured for what they had done, what they had earnestly striven for (and in some case, got away with). All of that has value in this world, and the Word does not refute that this is true. But in the end, the most important points were in the hymns that were sung: leadership, dedication, glory. All of it, to God and His holy purposes. Which is why I wince when I see and hear the behaviour and language of some of our athletes, and remember that I too was sometimes like that when I was young.