Comment by LispSporks22
2 years ago
I've always wondered, once we get into asteroid mining, whether there will be a global "massening" if we bring more matter back to the planet. If the orbit should change and you know, cause problems and whatnot.
2 years ago
I've always wondered, once we get into asteroid mining, whether there will be a global "massening" if we bring more matter back to the planet. If the orbit should change and you know, cause problems and whatnot.
That’s a hilarious idea. It wouldn’t surprise me if we did that. Find 1b tons of gold somewhere and start building houses out of it on earth
In medievil times Alchemy was the search for changing base metals (mostly lead) into gold. Clearly unimaginable riches would follow.
What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead.
This has happened before. Aluminium used to cost more than silver. The Washington Memorial is capped in aluminium for all of about 9 inches high, at fantastic cost.
Development of the Hall process made aluminium plentiful. It's now a cheap house-hold item we discard daily.
If we found a billion tons of gold, the value of gold would crater basically to the cost of actually bringing it to earth. We'd find uses for it (its pretty) but it'd make a terrible building material :)
What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead.
Only if the process was commonly known. Alchemists were quite a secretive bunch. For example, if you asked most people to name a famous alchemist they'd probably come up with nothing, despite Isaac Newton being one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_stud...
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This plot point in Goldfinger blew my mind as a teenager (spoiler: Goldfinger does not want to steal gold - he want's to make the gold in Fort Knox radioactive, to raise the value of the gold he has). If there is one important subject that is not that hard to understand, but poorly understood by the general public, it's how markets work. I know many well educated people who make trivial mistakes when thinking about markets.
> "What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead."
Not if you're the only guy who's figured out how to do it.
I agree with your analysis, but the process might be the most valuable thing here, getting rid of lead.
Would make great reactor shielding, especially due to chemical stability compared to lead.
Finally, toilet seats made of gold can be had by everyone! ;)
And that is why they made the stock exchange ;)
Hmm, Earth is losing 60000 tons of atmosphere per year. And this has been going for quite a while. Bringing back stuff might not be great effect.
The mass of the Earth has no impact on its orbit. Think about it this way: the northern and southern halves of Earth orbits the sun in exactly the same orbit as the full Earth. Now, if we increased the mass of the Sun, however…