What is the diameter of a solid gold spherical nugget weighing 1 ounce?

[Muse]

Saw 60 Minutes last night. One segment was on a South African gold mine where miners descend 2 miles, then use equipment to dislodge cave walls for processing. Daily they smelt gold and form gold bars. Gold is nearly twice as heavy as lead! 19.3gm/cm^3 vs 11.34gm/cm^3 !!!

 

[shortylickens]

Can we all just take a moment to admit Metric really is superior and America cant change because we're all basically cowards?

 

[Muse]

Can we all just take a moment to admit Metric really is superior and America cant change because we're all basically cowards?

No, can't do it. Maybe it's true. I don't F. with units much so don't really trip on it.

 

[nakedfrog]

About tree fiddy.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Work backwards.

28.34 grams per ounce, 19.32 g/cm^3, so your ounce of gold has a volume of ~ 1.47cm^3.

Volume of sphere is 4/3 π r^3 so:

4/3 π r^3 ~ 1.47
πr^3 ~ 1.10
r^3 ~0.35
r ~ 0.70cm

Diameter (double the radius) is therefore ~1.4cm.

 

[zinfamous]

Work backwards.

28.34 grams per ounce, 19.32 g/cm^3, so your ounce of gold has a volume of ~ 1.47cm^3.

Volume of sphere is 4/3 π r^3 so:

4/3 π r^3 ~ 1.47
πr^3 ~ 1.10
r^3 ~0.35
r ~ 0.70cm

Diameter (double the radius) is therefore ~1.4cm.

 

[IronWing]

Work backwards.

28.34 grams per ounce, 19.32 g/cm^3, so your ounce of gold has a volume of ~ 1.47cm^3.

Volume of sphere is 4/3 π r^3 so:

4/3 π r^3 ~ 1.47
πr^3 ~ 1.10
r^3 ~0.35
r ~ 0.70cm

Diameter (double the radius) is therefore ~1.4cm.

Gold is measured in Troy ounces so 31.1035 grams per ounce (diameter ~ 1.45 cm).

 

[ultimatebob]

Smaller than an alternator sized chunk of bulk beef, obviously.

(This post is three hours old without an alternator size reference? Wow...This place really IS dying)

 

[mpo]

Can we all just take a moment to admit Metric really is superior and America cant change because we're all basically cowards?

Did you know....
The "foot", formerly known as the "international foot" is equal to 0.304 8 meters (exactly).

The US Survey foot (0.304 800 61 meters, approximately) will be deprecated on December 31, 2022.

Deprecation of the United States (U.S.) Survey Foot

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Geodetic Survey (NGS), National Ocean Service (NOS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are taking collaborative action to provide national uniformity in the measurement of length. This notice...

www.federalregister.gov

I think it is hilarious that the foot is defined as a fraction of a meter.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd like to see the foot deprecated. It just makes everything a PITA.

 

[DigDog]

Can we all just take a moment to admit Metric really is superior and America cant change because we're all basically cowards?

remember that when you think why Intel has dominance over the server market.
ALL the services, textbooxs, appliances, everything is in metric. You can't change one piece of the system unless you change all the pieces. It's not so easy.

 

[DigDog]

i lived for a few years in the states and have no idea how long a foot is. i dont know what a pound feels like. and an inch, i can make a rough guess.
the only imperial measures i have familiarity with is 1 ounce. i know exactly how much an ounce is. (and it's not enough)



... is the eightball imperial or metric ?

 

[Muse]

Work backwards.

28.34 grams per ounce, 19.32 g/cm^3, so your ounce of gold has a volume of ~ 1.47cm^3.

Volume of sphere is 4/3 π r^3 so:

4/3 π r^3 ~ 1.47
πr^3 ~ 1.10
r^3 ~0.35
r ~ 0.70cm

Diameter (double the radius) is therefore ~1.4cm.

Correct. These were my calculations (not troy ounces, whatever the hell they are. The kind that weigh 1/16 pound.)

1.46889=4/3*3.14159*r^3
r^3=1.46889/(4/3*pie)=0.350671656
r=0.705180381
d=1.410360764 cm = diameter of 24 carat solid gold sphere weighing 1 ounce

Not good to that many figures because the figure I had for density is 19.3g/cm^3, so just d=1.41

 

[IronWing]

Correct. These were my calculations (not troy ounces, whatever the hell they are. The kind that weigh 1/16 pound.)

It gets worse when you have to convert heavens to murgatroyd.

 

[randay]

How big? I have no idea. Why dont you just look around on the ground and pick up one of the many nuggets Ive dropped and measure it?

 

[Muse]

i lived for a few years in the states and have no idea how long a foot is. i dont know what a pound feels like. and an inch, i can make a rough guess.
the only imperial measures i have familiarity with is 1 ounce. i know exactly how much an ounce is. (and it's not enough)
... is the eightball imperial or metric ?

Only argument I can think not to go metric, other than the monumental upheaval doing so would entail, is that metric, if I understand this, is kinda mechanical, possibly bureaucratic in its slavishness to base 10.

 

[DigDog]

Only argument I can think not to go metric, other than the monumental upheaval doing so would entail, is that metric, if I understand this, is kinda mechanical, possibly bureaucratic in its slavishness to base 10.

why do you think we adopted base 10 ?

it's arbitrary; we could as well use base 12. just use 12 different symbols instead of 10. can you think of anything that's 10 in number, and that is associated with people doing math ?

 

[Muse]

why do you think we adopted base 10 ?

it's arbitrary; we could as well use base 12. just use 12 different symbols instead of 10. can you think of anything that's 10 in number, and that is associated with people doing math ?

Good point. I suppose base 12 would be more convenient. 3*2*2. Base 10 is 2*5, which is kind of weird.

To answer your question, I think 10 got the nod because we have 10 fingers. You can see mine in my avatar.

 

[DigDog]

bingo.

 

[sdifox]

remember that when you think why Intel has dominance over the server market.
ALL the services, textbooxs, appliances, everything is in metric. You can't change one piece of the system unless you change all the pieces. It's not so easy.

Yeap, it is so hard Myanmar just did it. And USA is left with Liberia as Imperial Unit pariah

 

[Red Squirrel]

I recently learned that an ounce of gold is actually not the same as an ounce of feathers. Apparently gold is measured in a different ounce! Why not just use grams to make everything simpler?

As a side note I held a lead ingot once, that shit's heavy! I wonder if you can buy those and how much they cost. Would be a fun conversation piece. The shipping would be a killer though. I'd like to see the postman's reaction when I sign that package. "What's in there, a brick?" "Basically, yeah".

 

[sdifox]

I recently learned that an ounce of gold is actually not the same as an ounce of feathers. Apparently gold is measured in a different ounce! Why not just use grams to make everything simpler?

As a side note I held a lead ingot once, that shit's heavy! I wonder if you can buy those and how much they cost. Would be a fun conversation piece. The shipping would be a killer though. I'd like to see the postman's reaction when I sign that package. "What's in there, a brick?" "Basically, yeah".

Just make your own. Sand cast + blow torch + lead pipes

 

[ponyo]

Gold is measured in Troy ounces so 31.1035 grams per ounce (diameter ~ 1.45 cm).

winner! Gold, silver, and other precious metals are measured in troy ounce and not regular ounce. Troy ounce is heavier.

 

[Muse]

bingo.

Some fun facts about GOLD:

Gold is the most malleable of all metals. It can be drawn into a monoatomic wire, and then stretched about twice before it breaks.[citation needed] Such nanowires distort via formation, reorientation and migration of dislocations and crystal twins without noticeable hardening.[10] A single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be beaten thin enough to become semi-transparent. The transmitted light appears greenish blue, because gold strongly reflects yellow and red.[11] Such semi-transparent sheets also strongly reflect infrared light, making them useful as infrared (radiant heat) shields in visors of heat-resistant suits, and in sun-visors for spacesuits.[12] Gold is a good conductor of heat and electricity.

Gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm3, almost identical to that of tungsten at 19.25 g/cm3; as such, tungsten has been used in counterfeiting of gold bars, such as by plating a tungsten bar with gold,[13][14][15][16] or taking an existing gold bar, drilling holes, and replacing the removed gold with tungsten rods.[17] By comparison, the density of lead is 11.34 g/cm3, and that of the densest element, osmium, is 22.588±0.015 g/cm3.[18]
- -

The above from Wikipedia.

 

[Muse]

I recently learned that an ounce of gold is actually not the same as an ounce of feathers. Apparently gold is measured in a different ounce! Why not just use grams to make everything simpler?

As a side note I held a lead ingot once, that shit's heavy! I wonder if you can buy those and how much they cost. Would be a fun conversation piece. The shipping would be a killer though. I'd like to see the postman's reaction when I sign that package. "What's in there, a brick?" "Basically, yeah".

But dig, that same volume ingot in gold would weigh 19.3/11.34 as much, about 1.7x. If the lead weighed 50 kilograms, the gold would weigh 85.1 kilograms.

Disclaimer: The only gold I own that I know of is a microscopic layer on the two video connector adapters I bought a few weeks ago that are purportedly gold plated. I posted in another forum asking if that slight tint meant it really was gold and was informed it likely really is.