Random Question

[nancylebov]

If you could have an ounce of gold in any form you wanted, what would you choose and why?

I raised this question in one of the rasf* groups a while ago, and got an interesting variety of answers.

I'd like a nugget because it'll have more geological information to it than gold which has been melted and molded and it'll have an interesting surface.

Comments

[redbird]

Worked gold from the earliest culture to have done so.

And I'm asking for it in specifically that phrasing, because what turns up in reply will be informative.

If that's cheating, I'd like jewelry from either Stone Age Varna or Minoan Crete.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It's not nearly as much cheating as one of my friends who wanted all the information ever discovered by the human race (past, present, and future) encoded in the gold.

Since I'm running this thing, I'd allow it, especially since I'd be interested in the results myself.

Thanks for the heads-up about the Varna gold--I'd never heard of it.

[redbird]

I lucked into Varna--there was a wonderful exhibit of Varna stuff, from late medieval back as far as the site goes, in Montreal a couple of years ago. I don't know if it made any other North American stops.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I would like it in the form of a very thin sheet with simple recipes for cures for AIDS, cancer, and the common cold made from common, cheap, easily found natural substances engraved on it.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I suspect that defining "possible" is harder than I thought. Such recipes *might* exist, but we can't be sure that they do. By the way, arteriosclerosis might have a large infectious component.

redbird's earliest gold assuredly does exist (or at least the earliest gold that hasn't been destroyed), but there's no way to find it in any reasonable amount of time with present technology.

At least we can be sure that my friend's spec of all information ever known by the human race is a specification of something real, but there's no reason to think it will all be known at one time in a way which can be imprinted on an ounce of gold.

My merely-not-owned-by-me nugget seems very solid by comparison.

This is reminding me of Hofstadter's layers of Tumbolia. Tumbolia is where software goes when the hardware is no longer supporting it. He suggests that a knot which is merely untied is in a shallower layer of Tumbolia than a knot whose rope is burned. Presumably, if the human race is gone with no successors, then that knot and much else would be much deeper in Tumbolia.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Some extraordinarily rare gold coin or coins with a total weight matching your spec, with provenance. Why? Because I could sell it for massive money.

Failing that, if the provenance is cheating, then superfine gold wire, just because I think it's cool.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm allowing provenance.

I've heard that nuggets are valuable, but probably not as valuable as a very rare coin.

[madfilkentist]

A Krugerrand for easy convertibility.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I want the Voyager Golden Record (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record), deliveredby a race that decoded it and returned to make peaceful first contact. (I actually don't know that it's one ounce; it may well be more. If that's a problem, I'll settle for the plaque from Pioneer 10, which was gold-anodized aluminum, and IIRC significantly less than one ounce of gold.)

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Flattened into a thin sheet, and engraved (both sides) with the art from a one dollar bill. Someone has to give a silly answer.

[ckd]

Engraved with all necessary information to access a very large, untaxed, yet still somehow legitimate bank account. Sort of the ultimate "gold card", ha ha.

[regalpewter.livejournal.com]

In a cross pendant of a design that I made based on Drake's idea of 'via stellarium' from Hammer's Slammers.

YIS,
WRI

[papersky.livejournal.com]

If it had to be real, I'd take it in Chinese coins with pandas on.

Otherwise I'll take it as mined asteroidal gold.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I'll be different: a portrait of my beloved.

[sylvar.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest fast-moving slugs on a collision course with certain miscreants and fools in the halls of power, but one ounce isn't going to go very far at velocities that wouldn't melt the slugs. (Well, that's an assumption; I didn't calculate it.)

So how about an ounce of pure gold distilled from the Sun? Gold is about 5.0e-10 percent (cite (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=224308)) of the mass of the sun, which still leaves about 10 zettagrams of the stuff (cite (http://www.google.com/search?q=mass+of+the+sun+*+5e-12)). I don't think anyone would miss it. Au-197 only, please, I don't need radioactive stuff.

Granted, ultimately it's all star-stuff, but I think it'd be a neat souvenir of this backwater, if I ever get out of here.

Once of gold

[celticferret.livejournal.com]

I'd have larger version of my current gold dragon.

KG

[goldcube.livejournal.com]

Cube, please.