Hey, everybody, I'm Ben.
I'm Lauren.
This is "Brain Stuff."
And our question for
the day is, if you
took all of the
gold in the world
and put it in one place,
how much would there be?
You know, it's amazing,
but the total amount
of gold in the world is a
surprisingly small, like tiny,
quantity.
Well, OK.
So how do we calculate
the total amount?
OK, yeah.
Great question.
If you look it up,
you'll find that
the annual worldwide
production of gold
is something like 50 million
troy ounces per year.
And so gold has a
specific gravity of 19.3.
That means that it's 19.3
times heavier than water.
So gold weights 19.3
kilograms per liter.
Oh, and a liter is
a cube that measures
10 centimeters, about four
inches on a side, right?
Correct.
Oh, good.
So there are 32.15 Troy
ounces in a kilogram.
Oh, OK.
So therefore, the world
produces a cube of gold
that's about 4.3 meters, or
about 14 feet on each side,
every year.
Right, which means that all
the gold produced worldwide
in one year could just about fit
in the average person's living
room?
Well, yeah.
This cube does weigh
1.5 million kilograms,
or about three million pounds.
So they'd probably have
to reinforce the floor
or something.
I digress, Lauren, I'm sorry.
Figuring out the
total amount of gold
that's been produced by human
beings in all of eternity
it is a little bit
harder, though, right?
Yeah, to get at some
kind of estimate,
let's figure that the world
has been producing that 50
troy ounces of gold per
year for about 200 years.
OK.
So 50 million for 200--
that, that number's--
That might be a little bit high.
But once you figure the
fact that the Aztecs
and the Egyptians were producing
smaller amounts of gold
for a really long
time, like 3,000 years,
it's probably not that far off.
Ah, that's a good point.
So, OK.
So 50 million ounces
times 200 years equals--
Ten billion ounces?
Oh, my God.
I m so glad you did that part.
OK.
10 billion ounces
of gold then would
fit into a cube
roughly 25 meters.
Or 82 feet.
82 feet on a side.
But the Washington
Monument measure
what, like 55 by 55 feet
and is 550 feet tall?
So that means that
if you could somehow
gather every scrap
of gold humankind
has ever produced
together in one place,
you could only
build about a third
of the Washington Monument.
So that's why it's
not made out of gold.
I guess.
You guys, thanks so
much for watching.
We hope that we have answered
this question about gold.
All right, so that's it.
That's how much gold is
estimated to be in the world.
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