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Making purple gold

3 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2023–2024 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN mentions it as a fascinating example of chemistry persistence and as something people learned from, such as discovering purple gold exists.

NileRed tries to make a ring from pure purple gold, a gold-aluminium intermetallic that is brittle and hard to work with. The 53-minute video follows the chemistry and many failed attempts before he produces a finished ring.

“There's a fascinating video of a fellow trying to make a ring out of Purple Gold.” (HN, 2024)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Demos

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@whartung Jul 2024 Recommends
on HN thread Making my own wedding rings
There's a fascinating video of a fellow trying to make a ring out of Purple Gold. [this video] No, I hadn't heard of purple gold either.
Fascinating attempt to make a ring out of purple gold.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@ajsnigrutin Feb 2024 Cites it
on HN thread 46% of Americans didn't read a book in 2023
Read more
Sure, but if when are you going to open a book on SNES (super nintendo)? For comparison, here is a very interesting video series for anyone with at least some programming knowledge: [link] Sure, you could buy a book about snes (not even sure if any good ones exist) and read about that... but you're not that interested into the topic, because it's something old and not something you'll actually do... but here's a 6 minute video, that you'll probably watch... and if it's interesting, you'll go down a playlist and see "how thing were done" "back then" and learn something new. Ever heard of Tefifon music player? Neither have I, until i saw the video: [link] ... i would have never bought a book on ancient music players, but I learned something new by watching a short video. Ever heard of purple gold? Neither have I, again, until the video: [this video] Compare this to eg. book bestsellers: [link] Sometimes all you need is a summary, you're not a chemist, SNES programmer or an old music player collector, but you still learn a lot, and all those things are topics, where you just don't buy a book, because th 10, 20 minute video covers all that you need and want to know.
Used as an example of learning something new from a short video.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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