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fusso
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God should've blessed Earth with more precious metals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elem...
The rarest metals in earth crust are the PGMs, Ag, Au and Re. If God had blessed us with a lot more (say, at least the abundance of Sn) of them,
things made of them like computers, cata cons and jewelry would be much cheaper, more could be used everywhere, research would advance quicker and we
could afford more of them for either element collection or experiments.
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opfromthestart
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I doubt jewelry would be less expensive, it would probably just be made of even rarer and more expensive materials.
The element collection aspect would be a lot better though.
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fusso
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Quote: Originally posted by opfromthestart  | I doubt jewelry would be less expensive, it would probably just be made of even rarer and more expensive materials.
The element collection aspect would be a lot better though. |
I mean, jewelry made of these metals.
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mayko
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Historically, the function of jewelry was not just to look pretty but also to store wealth in a manner that is portable, stable, and independent of
property law (eg, a woman who could not formally hold the title to land, could still acquire informal wealth on her person).
Inexpensive jewelry defeats this purpose.
Speaking of purpose, aren't threads like this the purpose of whimsy?
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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fusso
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| Quote: Originally posted by mayko | Historically, the function of jewelry was not just to look pretty but also to store wealth in a manner that is portable, stable, and independent of
property law (eg, a woman who could not formally hold the title to land, could still acquire informal wealth on her person).
Inexpensive jewelry defeats this purpose.
Speaking of purpose, aren't threads like this the purpose of whimsy? |
But the pros of having more precious metals on earth would definitely outweigh the cons.
Don't you want cheaper computers, cars and chemicals?
And I want more responses so I didn't put this in whimsy.
[Edited on 190502 by fusso]
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Ubya
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jewelry is made of precious metals to give importance. you could make a ring out of brass, the difference in color is not that much from gold, but
still if you want to merry, you buy a gold ring, not a brass one. beuty it's an important factor in jewelry, but mostly is the symbol of wearing
something expensive, that has value.
if gold was as common as dirt, you would probably wear brass or bronze
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RogueRose
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Not all wedding rings are gold, they can be anything the person wants. I've seen some really unique rings that the person made for their wife.
The reason gold has such a high value is specifically b/c it is rare, not so much b/c it's other properties though those are very nice
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CharlieA
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So, if I understand you correctly, you want to make precious metals common (cheap), right.
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clearly_not_atara
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The high-electronegativity metals -- including PGM, Ag, Au, Re, Hg -- sank into the core during Earth's formation because they did not easily form
low-density oxides and instead remained as the high-density pure metal. However, this high electronegativity is also responsible for their tendency to
form weakly polarized covalent bonds with organic species which undergo complex reactions, whereas other metals form highly polarized bonds that
mostly just act as weaker versions of Grignard reagents. High electronegativity also results in a low tendency to be oxidized, which is necessary for
some electronic components.
There are (relatively) high concentrations of "precious" metals in asteroids, which unlike Earth, are not sorted by density.
[Edited on 3-5-2019 by clearly_not_atara]
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Σldritch
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Don't worry i am sure God will send mankind a nice PGM rich astroid soon enough if we just keep doing what we do best.
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draculic acid69
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Price of asteroids far exceeds any pgm's you'll get from them.more rare too.and god doesn't exist.
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j_sum1
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Disagree DA.
If a 20 kg meteorite of 90% platinum fell in my back yard, I would be pretty quick to cash it in for its metal content if I couldn't find a cashed-up
meteorite collector.
And I'd be thanking God for what he had dished up.
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Sulaiman
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... vapourised
... in person
CAUTION : Hobby Chemist, not Professional or even Amateur
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j_sum1
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haha.
But seriously, never heard of a dark flight meteorite?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIIzckUv2Mo
Pause just before 18 seconds and go frame by frame (use the "." key.) It is on screen for about 7 frames.
https://www.universetoday.com/110963/norwegian-skydiver-almo...
I reckon one of those landing in my yard would make a bit of a dent but I'd collect it ok.
[Edited on 3-5-2019 by j_sum1]
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draculic acid69
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| Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1 | Disagree DA.
If a 20 kg meteorite of 90% platinum fell in my back yard, I would be pretty quick to cash it in for its metal content if I couldn't find a cashed-up
meteorite collector.
And I'd be thanking God for what he had dished up. |
Tousche jsum1.tousche
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fusso
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Hence I think God shouldve blasted earth with *much more* small precious-metal-rich meteorites after earth crust had solidified so they wont dissolve
into the mantle/core.
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Ubya
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| Quote: Originally posted by fusso | | Hence I think God shouldve blasted earth with *much more* small precious-metal-rich meteorites after earth crust had solidified so they wont dissolve
into the mantle/core. |
Don't pray something you could regret.
meteorite shower wipes life on Earth. the ground is now shiny with platinum
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fusso
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| Quote: Originally posted by fusso | | Hence I think God shouldve blasted earth with *much more* small precious-metal-rich meteorites after earth crust had solidified so they wont dissolve
into the mantle/core. |
Plus, before any multicellular organisms appeared.
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MrWonderful
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The hypothesis that we are nothing more than cosmic accidents has been widely accepted by the scientific community. Figures as diverse as Bertrand
Russell, Jacques Monod, Steven Weinberg, and Richard Dawkins have said it is so. It is an article of their faith, one advanced with the confidence of
men convinced that nature has equipped them to face realities the rest of us cannot bear to contemplate. There is not the slightest reason to think
this so.
- The Devils Delusion by David Berlinski, page xiv
"Religion's power to console," Richard Dawkins writes in The God Delusion, "doesn't make it true." Perhaps this is so, but only a man who has spent a
good deal of time snoring on the down of plenty could be quite so indifferent to the consolations of religion, wherever and however they may be found.
One wonders, in any case why religion has the power to console and why it has had this power over the course of human history. - page 11, 12
p 22 A Shockingly Happy Picture by Excess Deaths
First World War 15 million
Soviet Union, Stalin's Regime 20 million
Second World War 55 million
People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong 40 million
Congo Free State 8 million
Russian Civil War 9 million
Turkish massacres of Armenians 1.5 million
Kinshasa, Congo 3.8 million
Second Indochina War 3.5 million
Korean War 2.8 million
Cambodia, Khmer Rouge 1.65 million
[Two more pages of death statistics follow]
p 26 What Hitler did not believe, and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo
did not believe and what the NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party
theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what they
were doing.
p 27 Hitler's Germany was a technologically sophisticated secular society, and Nazism itself, as party propagandists never tired of stressing, was
"motivated by an ethic that prided itself in being scientific." (From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany)
Christopher Hitchens is prepared to denounce the Vatican for the ease with which it diplomatically accommodated Hitler, but about Hitler, the
Holocaust, or the Nazis themselves he has nothing to say. This is an odd omission for a writer who believes that religion poisons everything.
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clearly_not_atara
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Asteroids are free, the only thing you have to pay for is spaceflight. Which is expensive, but it's a lot less expensive than it was fifty years ago,
and it'll keep getting less expensive.
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fusso
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| Quote: Originally posted by Σldritch | | Don't worry i am sure God will send mankind a nice PGM rich astroid soon enough if we just keep doing what we do best. |
God shouldve did it million yrs ago, not now nor in the future.
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MrWonderful
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If ONLY God were as smart as you are. If ONLY.......
"A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven." ...
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feinman, quantum physicist
“Many people don’t realize that science basically involves assumptions and faith. Wonderful things in both science and religion come from our
efforts based on observations, thoughtful assumptions, faith and logic. (With the findings of modern physics, it) seems extremely unlikely (that the
existence of life and humanity are ) just accidental.” – Charles Townes, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley
“It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are
religious…. I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life.” - Arthur L. Schawlow, Professor of Physics at Stanford University, winner
of the Nobel Prize in physics, believes that new scientific discoveries provide compelling evidence for a personal God.
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about
atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to
vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent
mind.” ― Max Planck
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fusso
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@MrW can you not add content that is irrelevant to the main point (precious metals discussion) of the thread?
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j_sum1
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What a delighfully divergent thread. It's Saturday morning. I can waffle a bit.
I find the premis very interesting: that somehow God is obligated to respond to fusso's whim. fusso lacks the ability and so God should have done it
retroactively. That is a bizarre kind of theology.
I think that a change in the distribution of the elements would change the way that we value them. If Pt mines were common then sure we would use
platinum a lot more. But we would think that was normal and Pt would not be valued the same. Swap the abundance and distribution of Pt and Cu and
suddenly you have a very different world.
Meteorites are common enough but a real dog to find. Hence the perceived value. Their composition is fascinating and holds a certain attraction. And
let's face it: a few kg of rhodium would really change my life. The rock-hounds can have any old chunk of astrolith that hurls through the
atmosphere. I want the ones that contain useful or profitable material. As to whether asteroid mining will ever be profitable. I seriously doubt it.
Space is big. Energy requirements to get there and back are always going to be prohibitive. Grams per cubic metre and the oceans beat space for any
element. Dilute extraction is a far more feasible proposition IMO.
The exception would be if we discovered concentrations of useful minerals on the moon. Damn shame it is effectively a mineral desert.
The knee-jerk assertion that there is no God, I always find curious. Physics points us to the existence of entities outside of the physical universe.
The Big Bang Singularity, the vacuum field precursor (the "nothing" "before" the big bang), the agents that cause uniformity across the universe at
distances beyond information travel. These are but some of the things outside the physical universe that are believed to exist. Add to that dark
matter, dark energy and speculation on multiverses which has become popular. The concensus is pretty strong that there do exist powerful agents
outside of the universe as we understand it.
The open question is whether any of those agents could be both personal and intelligent. There is no reason to exclude this possibility and many good
reasons to include this possibility. It is not an unscientific proposition as many people assert.
Sorry, Mr Wonderful. TLDR. I will come back to it. After pancakes.
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Vomaturge
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| Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1 |
I think that a change in the distribution of the elements would change the way that we value them. If Pt mines were common then sure we would use
platinum a lot more. But we would think that was normal and Pt would not be valued the same. Swap the abundance and distribution of Pt and Cu and
suddenly you have a very different world.
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This would agree with historical experience. There once was a metal which had that happen to it... In reverse. It's compounds were always abundant (as
opposed to the platinum group metals which are rare, and found as native metal), but extracting it in elemental form took tremendous amounts of energy
and dangerous and expensive reagents, so it cost more than gold. Then a cheap extraction process was invented. It's supposed value dropped, but it's
unusual chemical and physical properties (most of which are the opposite of platinum group metals, incidentally) were finally put to good use.
[Edited on 3-5-2019 by Vomaturge]
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