Lead to Gold
In the movie Hudson Hawk, Bruce Willis saves the world from an economic meltdown from a rich lunatic who wants to turn lead into gold. The idea is to flood the world with so much gold that most of the world's currencies, which are backed by a nation's gold reserves, become worthless. The question is... is this possible - to turn lead into gold?
Leonardo da Vinci apparently knew how to convert lead into gold. He was also smart enough to know the implications that it would have on the world economy if every commoner came to know the secret. That is why he wrote the methodology in his diary in a cryptic form which till date no one has been able to decipher.
Truth is, it is possible to turn lead into gold. Lead (atomic number 82) and gold (atomic number 79) are different by only a diference of 3 protons. So if by some chemical or physical reaction one is able to remove 3 protons from lead then the resultant product is pure gold - worthless to priceless! There have been reports that as far back as 1951 people discovered the process by accident but found it too cumbersome to repeat. The Soviets realised that some of the lead shieldings in their nuclear reactors had turned to gold during atomic reactions - again not a feasible proposition - blasting nuclear bombs to turn lead to gold.
Alternative is to use particle accelerators which can make atoms travel at near to speed of light and collide with another atom and in the process release some protons. But buidling particle accelrators costs $3 billion and converting lead to gold - atom by atom - is surely not worth it. Thus the only feasible option now is to extract gold from various mines... unless one of you out there is smart enough to come out with an alternative :-)
posted by Teshu at
10:58 am
4 Comments:
If I am not mistaken the recently built LHC (large hadron collider) particle accelerator cost nearly 8 billion dollors….
If I am not mistaken the recently built LHC (large hadron collider) particle accelerator cost nearly 8 billion dollors….
I am not able to understand this statement of yours that“RBI needs to release an equal amount of rupees in the Indian market. Over supply of rupees leads to inflation”, but your statement seems logical if it buys dolor in the Indian market. “In how many ways RBI acquires Dolor’s? I have been under the notion that RBI purchases dolors by issuing treasury bills…. And by inviting foreign direct investments. …….
Yeah CERN is about $8b but that is because it is the biggest one. The previous particle colliders usually used to cost $3b. Then again, todays dollar value is not the same as it was in the 90's :)
As regards the RBI: releasing equal amount of rupees into the market - RBI need not always issue treasury bills to buy dollars. Remember that dollar come not only in currency form but also in dollar denominated assets. And banks are not the only people who sell dollars to RBI. Even common man, corporates, FII's etc bring dollar into the economy and they need rupees to conduct business. So RBI purchases it and releases rupees. When there is too much money in the market there is bound to be inflation. Since you seem interested give me a couple of days.. I will write another article about RBI's role in inflation :)
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