xtifr
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Occult Chemistry
- Thread starter Alexander1304
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At least in theory lead can be changed to gold in the proper particle accelerator - but it would cost way more than the gold would be worth, so.......
xtifr
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Well, in theory, the price on particle accelerators could drop if the market for them grows to the point where mass production is feasible. On the other hand, a cheap source for man-made gold would make the price of gold plummet, so I suspect that what you said will always be true, unless gold becomes the by-product of another, more cost-effective process.
It's still not occult, though, as baron pointed out. Or maybe it is. If occult simply means "beyond our understanding", well, there's a lot of stuff in the world today that's beyond my understanding. Doesn't mean it's magic, of course. Just stuff that requires specialized knowledge, of which there's way too much around today for any one person to really grasp.
Here's an example of bleeding edge technology that I don't quite fully grasp, but which seems particularly relevant to a discussion of "occult" chemistry: quantum dotsWP/Programmable matterWP: as far as I can tell (and I'm definitely not very clear on the concept), we can basically make nano-capacitors so small that the electrons form orbits and begin to act like molecules or atoms, at least chemically, but the number of electrons can, theoretically, be changed, causing pseudo-lead to change to pseudo-gold programmatically. Sounds way out there, but patents have already been issued.
With stuff like this, who needs woo to get a sense of wonder? (Aside from those who aren't educated enough to begin to grasp the possible implications of something like this.)
I think baron was paraphrasing Tim Minchin's song, “Storm”.
*looks at it again*
Oh, duh.
Hershele Ostropoler
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Yes and no. However much gold there is in the world, it's ductile. And shiny. So just as we have industrial diamonds and seeded pearls alongside the non-human-created kinds (with the latter having higher status for jewelry), I can see "mined gold" being a selling point for luxury goods, with "industrial gold" being used in computers, and as decoration for people who can't afford mined (not just jewelry but, like, gold leaf to apply to signs and stuff), and sold as mined to the gullible nouveau riche.
xtifr
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That may be (though I think you have the gullible part backwards--at least in the case of diamonds, I believe it is those who believe in the superiority of mined gems who are the gullible ones, and the same would be true for any who were willing to pay a premium for mined gold), but such a distinction is unlikely to last--the entrenched cartels who depend on the rarity of such easily manufactured items may be able to leverage their wealth to hold back the competition for a time, but in the longer run, I believe such efforts are doomed to failure. Especially with something as plastic as gold, which doesn't have the fancy, precise crystalline structure of diamonds to help us distinguish the natural from the artificial. Certainly no attempt to distinguish artificial carbon from natural could work as well.
I'd expand further on my opinions of the diamond cartel, but it's probably more appropriate for the CT section, and since it's not something I care very much about, I'll simply not bother.