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Actually, they are both wrong. The billionaires funding the project would be billionaires² and we would remain under their thumb.
Only harder!
Sorry to disappoint, but analyses of Psyche 16 point to it being composed of iron, nickel, carbon, rock, and silicate. It’s mass is too light for it to be composed primarily of metal. For it to be mostly iron-nickel, it would be 50% internally porous, which is highly unlikely for it’s size. Gold is far more dense than iron.
Might make some electronics cheaper. I never really thought about it much but the logic gates in processors are all made from Silicon which is literally the most common element in the crust of the earth, in theory we should be able to make more RAM than anybody could ever want.
On the up side, everyone rich enough to have been hording their wealth in gold would also be poor.
Which is mostly states
More of this.
We still will be poor as rats but with fancy gold necklaces.
The gold will be buried in a bunker and never seen again somehow and a handful of people will be richer than all of humanity throughout history combined, and we will be eating little bars made from pressed insects with flavors that are only tangentially similar to beef, chicken, or shrimp.
Why did I think gold was more electrically conductive than copper? Apparently it’s not and silver is even more conductive than copper. The same is true with thermal conductivity as well.
Because it is more electrically conductive than tarnished copper or silver, so electronics prefer gold since it can’t tarnish and will never degrade. If silver was chosen for CPUs, for instance, pretty much all devices would have to be hermetically sealed or be replaced within 18 months. Copper is only used in electronics when it will be relatively sealed in place (like in PCBs)
Just wait until they figure out how many quintillions of precious metals are in the earth…
It’s a bit hard to thoroughly mine the earth though
Yeah, mining this asteroid is eez…
But asteroids are easy to mine?
Yes. They’re smaller and nobody would give you shit if you just explode them apart and gather the shiny parts.
Great. Get on it, then. Der’s gold in dem dar asteroids.
On it, chief. Just gotta figure out how to fly to space past russian drones.
I suppose its market value might depend on which organization(s) retrieves/owns it. De Beers controlled and artificially inflated the market value of diamonds for like a century. IIRC they still own almost half of the global diamond supply today.
Dumbpublican: so you’re telling me there’s a chance…
Mansa Musa has entered the chat
Movie idea: A very stupid superhero and a slightly less stupid supervillain work together to crash Gold Asteroid on Earth. They are assisted by a very suicidal scientist.
