Golden Treasure

[mishalak]

Some Math Useful for Storytellers
When reading tales as a kid about peasants finding little barrels full of gold I didn't have any idea of what it was really worth. But today I though of a fairly good way to explain how much gold is really worth and how hard it is to move to a child.

At a price of about $400 a troy ounce a million dollars of gold will come in at 2,500 ounces. Converting to metric to make this easier (31.1 grams to the troy ounce) that's 77,758 grams (with rounding) or 77.7 kilos. That weighs more than me! But how big is it? Ah here is where metric makes it easy. Specific gravity of gold is 19.32 dividing that in gives us cubic centimeters. Divide by 1,000 to get liters, 4.024. A six pack of soda equals approximately 2 liters. So two six packs would be the volume of about a million dollars worth of gold coins. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Gold does have a pretty stable value. So though a million dollars has meant different times in history you can see that a small (very heavy) box holding about the volume of a six pack would be quite a treasure for a peasant (or anyone else) to find. Though he might have a bit of a time carrying it home. In any era half of that would by a very great house, though there are quite a few more houses like that today and we pay for more amenities and so on.

Comments

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you want specific gravity (ratio of mass to water's mass) or did you mean to use density?

Density of gold is oh yeah... a gram is a cubic centimeter of water. How convenient. Never mind. :D

Doran was telling me the other day that if you took all of the gold ever mined in the history of the human race, it would form a cube slightly less than 19 meters on a side, small enough to fit under the Eiffel tower. I think - he might have quoted a smaller dimension, but I just looked that one up.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I just love the metric system. <grin> I think the six pack gives an excellent grasp of the size, now if I could just think of a common heavy thing. I suppose I could relate it to six packs the other way. Each one would weigh as much as nineteen (plus two cans or leave them out to allow for the extra weight of aluminum). Heavy.

Something about like a cube 19 meters on a side seems reasonable. The thing is that when you start to imagine how much that really is it becomes much more impressive. I mean the Eiffel tower is really, really, big. If I was standing next to a solid cube that size I'd be impressed, especially if it was gold, but even if it was a solid stone tomb it was still be pretty incredible. Not pyramid incredible, but then there are not many things that are.

[fairmer.livejournal.com]

*applause*

Excellent. This is similar to an article I wanted to write about relative historical wealth, based on that meme that was going around for a while... (You are the 2 millionth richest person in the world! That puts you in the top 7% economically) ...in which I pointed out what it was really like to be in the top 7% economically in previous eras. (early Roman Empire and late feudal Europe, specifically)

Except, now I think you should write it. :) Hey, if you've already spent this much time thinking about it... and a non-fiction article like that would sell to, say, Strange Horizons, pretty easily.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything more than this. And I've not even researched the assertion that gold is basically stable in value. That's just something I've heard. Today a good suit costs about $400 and at the time of the American revolution the same amount, one ounce of gold, would buy a gentleman a good suit. That's one example I've heard used, but I don't know how accurate the assertion is. Maybe gold had more purchasing power in the middle ages. I do know that the relative size of the aristocracy and modern wealth are both subjects of controversy.

What I'm saying in a long winded way is that I don't want to even put a toe into the realm of historical research. I'm a writer because when I write I'm god and no one can contradict me. If there is one thing I've learned from the internet it is "don't touch the historical research tar baby".