Pound (mass) a legal unit for trade (it was abolished in the United Kingdom on 6 January 1879 by the Weights and Measures Act of 1878), but the troy ounce, of a troy pound, is still used for measurements of gems such as opals, and precious metals such as silver, platinum and particularly gold. The system called Tower weight was the more general name for King Offa's pound. This dates to 757 AD and was based on the silver penny. This in turn was struck over Arabic dirhams (2d). The pound was based on the weight of 120 Arabic silver dirhams, which
Synthesis of precious metals Synthesis of precious metals The synthesis of precious metals involves the use of either nuclear reactors or particle accelerators to produce these elements. Ruthenium and rhodium are precious metals produced by nuclear fission, as a small percentage of the fission products. The radioisotopes of these elements generated by nuclear fission with the longest half-lives have half-lives of 373.59 days and 45 days for ruthenium and rhodium, respectively. This makes their extraction from spent nuclear fuel possible, although they must be checked for radioactivity before use. Each kilogram of the fission products of U will contain 63.44 grams of ruthenium isotopes