Sunday 6 November 2011

The Golden Conundrum


I got into a rather philosophical discussion about gold recently (1)
The question was “If you had a bar of pure gold. Could you destroy it so that it was utterly gone? And you're not allowed to throw it into a black hole”
The black hole solution is a pretty common solution for solving debates round our way but this one occasion I'd forgotten to pack it.

Every suggestion I had was shot down by David saying “but you could reconstitute it on the atomic level” and then looking smug because he thought that he'd finally been able to stump me. But fear not loyal readers because I've been thinking about this a bit (2) and have, in fact, devised three surefire methods for getting rid of gold when you've forgotten to bring your handy dandy black hole.

Now because David is going to be reading this I'd like to assure him that I have put quite a bit of thought into each of these theories before posting them. After all you can't just slap together a bunch of loony statements and call it a day! (3)

Theory One:
Change the language. A rose may small as sweet by any other name but it does change the surface of the problem, chiefly that you're supposed to be getting rid of this stuff you've gotten hold of is merely Grundlewort rock (4).
The metal in question has ceased to be gold and thus been gotten rid of although the problem of removing the word gold from every language in the world will no doubt require a tardis, some Daleks (5)
and a willing partner to distract the Doctor by saying “hey Look over there!” whenever he starts to wonder where the big blue box has gotten to.

But I would like to point out, no black hole.

Theory Two:
As it seems that the Tardis has manage to elude us and I'm not crazy enough to try and pinch the one that belongs to the master we are forced to take a different approach.

Now it seems that back in the days of yore the ultimate dream of any alchemist worth his alembeck was to turning of base metals into noble ones. To whit, lead into gold, This would lead to them being rich, powerful and suddenly extremely handsome.

Pictured: Typical Alchemist
Due to the technology of the time none of them suceeded, or if they did then they kept it well under their hat. However if we were to use modern technology then it is possible that we could very well discover that formula which so eluded them.

Now you might very well be saying “Hang on. All he's doing is making more of the horrible stuff. I want to get rid of it!”
This statement has indeed hit the nail on the head, but here's something that you might not have considered. There are positive and negative versions of everything and if there's a formula for changing lead into gold then it follows that there must be one to change gold back into lead.

The next step is to put yourself in a hypnotic state and deliberately command yourself to forget the equation. Thus leaving you with a lump of lead and that annoying feeling you get when you've forgotten something important (6)
A Post hypnotic trigger will ensure that, should you be captured by certain parties who demand the formula, all you will be able to give them is a complex formula that ultimately does nothing more than turn them into the fluffier kind of duckling. At which point I guarantee they will suddenly have more pressing concerns than all the gold in the world.

Theory three:
This is the one theory that David didn't like, mainly because it managed to stand on its own despite his many, many attempts to riddle it with more holes than the montage at the end of The Godfather.

Step 1: Turn the gold into guitar strings of various sizes and thickness
Step 2: Sell these strings to musicians the world over and donate the proceeds to charity (7)

Conclusion: The gold is now destroyed, over time the strings will snap, be replaced and eventually thrown away, while there might be a lingering urban myth about golden strings it isn't one that anyone will ever take seriously.
Thus if they are at the local landfill or toxic waste dump and happen to see a guitar string hanging from the  bonnet of an old car their first thought isn't going to be “I wonder if that's one of the golden guitar strings I've heard about” followed by them frantic digging through the dumps of the world in order to track down the rest of the fabled strings (8)

-
The more you know!
The chemical that you really want to use is callled Aqua Regia (Royal water) which is a highly corrosive mixture of acids that will dissolve gold and even platinum. It is not recommended that you test this out on your grandmothers wedding ring.

Afterthought: 
This post details the how but it doesn't address the why.  Exactly what dark and insane purpose could there be in wanting to destroy something utterly?  We can only look to the skies in the vain and futile hope that there might be salvation to be found.





Notes:
  1. If you knew David then you'd know that this is pretty much par for the course
  2. Mainly because it's more interesting than work
  3. Unlike some.
  4. It's not even real grundlwort, That's fools grundlwort you've got there
  5. Because everythings better with Daleks
  6. You know that song you can't remember? The one that goes “Da da de dum something something loved her” That. For the rest of your life
  7. Since it could be argued that the money you've made from the selling of the gold is an aspect of the gold remaining.  I'm just covering all the bases here.
  8. Unless it's a Saturday morning cartoon but I think that's rather outside my jurisdiction.

11 comments:

  1. You may have too much time on your hands. Can I have some? And give me the gold while you're at it? I can recall having weird discussions like this in the past. Of course, me and my cohorts had some kind of mental stimulation going on at the time.


    Lee
    Blogging from A to Z

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sure I'll hand over the gold. But only after you wear a cape, laugh fiendishly and twirl your moustache.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am still not convinced on the guitarString > Break > Landfill > = GoldDestroyed();

    Here:

    int main boolean destroyThatEffingGold()
    {
    if(gold == turnedIntoGuitarString)
    {
    printf("Gold is not actually destroyed");
    return false;
    }

    elseif(gold == removedFromAllLanguagesByABunchOfMonksWithNothingBetterToDo)
    {
    printf("Gold is not actually destroyed");
    return false;
    }

    elseif(gold == droppedIntoABlackHole)
    {
    printf("Gold has in fact been destroyed, BUT you still failed because that was one of the exceptions");
    return false;
    }

    else
    {
    printf("Sorry, you have failed. You cannot destroy gold! Muahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!")
    return true;
    }
    }

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'd like to point out a minor flaw in the above routine in that you haven't actually proved that the gold hasn't been destroyed. If I'm reading this right

    There are 4 options that the person can choose and for three of them you're just displaying the "Gold is not actually destroyed" statement.

    So sorry but it is actually you who have failed and destruction of gold is entirely possible! Bwa ha ha hu hu ha ha!

    PS: You know what they say about mutiple exclamation marks

    ReplyDelete
  5. Multiple Orga.....I mean exclamtion marks are the mark of a true scholar!!!
    Yes you are reading the code incorrectly

    e.g.
    elseif(gold == removedFromAllLanguagesByABunchOfMonksWithNothingBetterToDo)
    {
    printf("Gold is not actually destroyed");
    return false;
    }

    Means, If the gold has been removed from all languages (by a bunch of monks) then Gold hasn't been destroyed. Then return false from the routine (False as in you have not destroyed the gold.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Although I used the Tardis/Dalek combination when I went back to remove the gold and you seem to have used monks and some kind of insane programming language the result is the same.

    The gold is gone, there is not one atom of GOLD to be found in space or, and I'm rather pleased with this, in time.

    ReplyDelete
  7. There must still be plenty in the many quadrillions upon quadrillions of alternate realities? Unless Monks infest all depths of space/time/reality/everythin that is.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hence the use of the Time And Relative Dimension In Space or "TARDIS"

    Also, The monks wouldn't have to infest the whole of everything/when/where, the whole purpose of being a monk is that you get a direct line to the Big G in charge of this crazy mixed up world, and, presumably, all the subtle variations thereof.

    But I'm not worried if there is some universe out there that still has Gold because the question only deals with the lump that is sitting on the table in front of you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Not so sure about a deletion of a word in all languages, but travelers in the TARDIS can usually recall the events that were changed, sort of a before and after the fact effect. So, am wondering if it would work the same...if, say, you went in the TARDIS with the monks, Doctor, or whomever...and did a mass delete of the word "Gold", would you still be able to recall what the lump of rock was once called once you returned to the present?(am wondering aloud) If that were to happen, it wouldn't really be gone because at least 1 person would have a distant memory of what it once was. (An example is...and this is really showing my geek here....with the current Doctor, when Amy forgot Rory because he had ceased to exist and never was. She did eventually remember him because it was lost somewhere deep in the back of her mind (and perhaps...*swoon* her heart) and all because she did infact know him before he never was)

    *Mind-Eff-Ery*!

    ReplyDelete
  10. No problem. We can borrow the self hypnosis trigger from the alchemy solution and "accidently" engineer the death of the doctor in the hopes that his next incarnation won't remember anything a little thing like who killed who.

    ReplyDelete