NileRed
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2023–2024
53:20 · 33M views · Dec 22, 2023
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.
HN mentions it as a fascinating example of chemistry persistence and as something people learned from, such as discovering purple gold exists.
3 comments from Hacker News
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.
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.
interestingly, the day after you posted this, popular youtuber nilered published a video in which, after staggering amounts of effort, he successfully makes a beautiful finger ring for himself from purple plague this video