The paper discusses the creation and properties of highly fluorescent, water-soluble, few-atom noble metal quantum dots, specifically gold nanoclusters. These nanoclusters exhibit discrete, size-tunable electronic transitions across the visible and near-IR spectrum, behaving as "molecular metals" with free electron-like properties. The optical and electronic properties of these nanoclusters are strongly influenced by their size, following a simple scaling relation \( E_{\text{Fermi}}/N^{1/3} \), where \( E_{\text{Fermi}} \) is the Fermi energy and \( N \) is the number of atoms. This scaling indicates that fluorescence arises from intraband transitions of free electrons, and the conduction electron transitions are the low-number limit of the plasmon, which occurs when a continuous density of states is reached. The study provides a "missing link" between atomic and nanoparticle behavior in noble metals, offering new opportunities for biological labels, energy transfer pairs, and light-emitting sources in nanoscale optoelectronics. The research also explores the photophysical properties of these nanoclusters, including their size-dependent transition energies and the observation of photon antibunching, confirming their status as true multi-electron artificial atoms.The paper discusses the creation and properties of highly fluorescent, water-soluble, few-atom noble metal quantum dots, specifically gold nanoclusters. These nanoclusters exhibit discrete, size-tunable electronic transitions across the visible and near-IR spectrum, behaving as "molecular metals" with free electron-like properties. The optical and electronic properties of these nanoclusters are strongly influenced by their size, following a simple scaling relation \( E_{\text{Fermi}}/N^{1/3} \), where \( E_{\text{Fermi}} \) is the Fermi energy and \( N \) is the number of atoms. This scaling indicates that fluorescence arises from intraband transitions of free electrons, and the conduction electron transitions are the low-number limit of the plasmon, which occurs when a continuous density of states is reached. The study provides a "missing link" between atomic and nanoparticle behavior in noble metals, offering new opportunities for biological labels, energy transfer pairs, and light-emitting sources in nanoscale optoelectronics. The research also explores the photophysical properties of these nanoclusters, including their size-dependent transition energies and the observation of photon antibunching, confirming their status as true multi-electron artificial atoms.