Relativistic effects in properties of gold

Abstract

Abstract Gold often shows unusual and sometimes surprising chemical and physical properties compared to its lighter group 11 elements (gold anomaly). Pyykkö and coworkers demonstrated in the mid seventies that this is due to effects from special relativity. Recent work in this field indeed indicates that the chemistry and physics of gold is dominated by relativistic effects. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 13:578–584, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/hc.10093