The golden trophy depicting two figures holding up the globe is one of the most iconic images in sport. The FIFA football world cup is currently under-way and at the end of the tournament the winning team's captain will be allowed one of the greatest honours in sport: to hold the solid gold trophy above his head. But is it really solid gold? Football's governing body, FIFA, claims so but Professor Martyn Poliakoff from the chemistry department of the University of Nottingham claims that it could not be solid gold as the trophy would weigh about as much as an adult man and be too soft to maintain its shape. It must therefore be an alloy of gold and is probably partially hollow, most likely in the globe portion as it would really be a terrible waste of gold if it wasn't. You can watch the full video below, but I recommend you visit www.periodicvideos.com to see this and many other entertaining chemistry videos by Professor Poliakoff and his colleagues.
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