When the explanation for why the metals in BBX's samples don't...

When the explanation for why the metals in BBX's samples don't show up in regular assays relies on relativistic chemistry (as still currently seems to be the front running explanation until another is found), I'd say the problem is beyond the understanding of most ordinary people, including Warwick Grigor and Jeff McKenzie or any other non-physicists or specialist chemists studying in this esoteric field.

As an aside when looking into the relativistic chemistry of gold I discovered a very interesting fact that in some ways is important to the human connection with this metal.

The human eye sees electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 600nm as yellow and gold appears yellow because it absorbs blue light more than it absorbs other visible wavelengths of light because of a small energy contraction in the orbital levels of it's outermost electrons due to the relativistic speeds at which those electrons travel.

"The electronic transition responsible for this absorption is a transition from the 5d to the 6s level. An analogous transition occurs in Ag but the relativistic effects are lower in Ag so while the 4d experiences some expansion and the 5s some contraction, the 4d-5s distance in Ag is still much greater than the 5d-6s distance in Au because the relativistic effects in Ag are smaller than those in Au. Thus, non-relativistic gold would be white. The relativistic effects are raising the 5d orbital and lowering the 6s orbital."

In short relativistic effects in heavy elements such as gold occur because the electrons in their outermost shells travel near the speed of light. The perturbation to the atomic electron structure of these heavy elements caused by these fast moving electrons was not taken account up to the 1970's as the effect is small so not of importance in the consideration of atomic and molecular structure and ordinary chemical reactions.

The effect however, as described above, has since been found to cause a relative contraction in the 5d to 6s transition in gold making it appear yellow rather than white like Ag and other metals. Similar effects have been found for other elements like Cs.

Without this relativistic effect, gold would look like silver. Where would that leave the relative desirability of the two metals in the eyes of humanity if both metals looked the same, only one weighed more than the other? Interesting thought. Thank heavens for those speeding electrons or my gold stocks might be worth less or even worthless.

P.S. Given a lot of energy is involved in the metallurgical liberation of the BBX ores and relativistic effects only contribute to very low energy effects in gold, I think it is not likely that relativistic effects are accounting for the unusual chemistry that is occurring here and that has been pointed to (by the company below) as a possible cause for the reason standard assays aren't working. IMHO DYOR

Eshmun