What if gold is produced in lab?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Yep, I understand and agree with the sentiment. I think diamonds are stupid in the first place, and much prefer colored stones, as those actually have a free market around them.

Yeah you caused me to look up sythentic diamonds.  It seems making synthetic diamonds (especially high quality, large size, good color, small defects, etc) is still pretty difficult to do.  It isn't like they have a diamond press which can crank out thousands of 1CT flawless, C color diamonds per hour.   They grow bunch, throw away most of them and then grade them like "natural diamonds".  So you get a mix of rarer higher quality diamonds and less rare lower quality ones.

Interesting stuff.  I learned it is actually very difficult to grow white diamonds in a lab so they cost more while colored (blue, etc) diamonds cost less.  The reverse is true for mined diamonds (where colored diamonds are far more rare then white diamonds).

Anyway, lab created gold or not, I'm getting ready for $8/Oz gold

Shows how scarcity of gold (or anything) is really just artificial scarcity (limited by the constraints of technology at the time).  For fair comparison Bitcoins' scarcity is equally artificial it just happens to be by consensus of participants rather than elemental rarity.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-space-asteroid-mining-idUSBRE83N06U20120424

[paraipan]

The price will go up since that's a more expensive way of getting gold!

You mean the other way around, right?
If everyone has it I would not pay the same amount of time and resources, even though it costs a great deal of energy to create it. The price of production would eventually go down, as it gets cheaper to make it, given enough time and specialized people with the right tools.

[MrTeal]

Lets test that theory. Go to the store, get your wife a ring made with cubic zirconia instead of diamond, and see if she minds.

Cubic zirconia isn't diamond.  It is obviously not diamond.  

Your quote would be more like saying.  Go to the store and get your wife a ring made with gold instead of gold and see if she minds.   Synthetic gold IS gold.  It is exactly the same atomic structure as natural gold.   Now here is the "meta" part.  How do you think "natural gold" formed?   That's right the same way.

In the early universe (i.e. seconds after big bang) there was just lots and lots of hydrogen (being the simplest atom) and not much else.  Some of that hydrogen underwent fusion and produce helium isotopes, some of those isotopes underwent neutron capture and become heavier elements.  Lots of fusion, fission, neutron capture and other atomic reactions going on.   The universe is mostly hydrogen and carbon because those are relatively common reactions.  The universe doesn't have "much" gold or other trace elements because those reactions were relatively rare.

Simple version "shortly" (as in from 0 sec to couple million years) after the big bang all elements were created using the same process the would be used in a lab to produce gold.   I mean where did you think gold came from?   A giant gold planet which got shattered by Thor flinging gold fragments all over the universe. just a j/k.

Synthetic gold IS gold.  It is absolutely identical to "natural" gold.   Done properly it would be completely impossible to tell if the gold in the store was made 5 billion years ago or 5 years ago.

Not to be pedantic, but more just for general science interest, heavier elements weren't produced during the big bang.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis
It wasn't until the first population III stars began appearing (and exploding) a couple hundred million years after the big bang that heavier elements like gold began to be produced.

Sorry, astronomy buff. I find this stuff interesting.

[SaltySpitoon]

Not to be pedantic, but more just for general science interest, heavier elements weren't produced during the big bang.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis
It wasn't until the first population III stars began appearing (and exploding) a couple hundred million years after the big bang that heavier elements like gold began to be produced.

Sorry, astronomy buff. I find this stuff interesting.

Not pedantic, neat.

[chmod755]

Anyway, lab created gold or not, I'm getting ready for $8/Oz gold

Shows how scarcity of gold (or anything) is really just artificial scarcity (limited by the constraints of technology at the time).  For fair comparison Bitcoins' scarcity is equally artificial it just happens to be by consensus of participants rather than elemental rarity.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-space-asteroid-mining-idUSBRE83N06U20120424

Indeed. Let's make some wikispeed-style spaceships and start interplanetary gold mining 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Indeed. Let's make some wikispeed-style spaceships and start interplanetary gold mining 

Screw it, I already have my spaceship ! I ll have a look and let you know what I find.

[DoomDumas]

Indeed, it could collapse gold value, and give BTC a nice boost, but I bet we are very far from this.. Gold has already been produce in very very small quantity, in some particule accelerator experiment, but quantities so microscopic, and a vast amount of energy and time is needed.. Dont remeber the numbers, but it's look like hundred thousands dollar for a fraction of a gram of gold...

I'll try to find the article !

[sebicas]

Then bitcoin would be the only medium of exchange that has a limited supply.

There are so much advantages Bitcoin has:

Gold

- We don't really know how much Gold is on existence and how much more will be found on the future
- Is hard to really probe the Gold is real Gold ( http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/19/new-york-jeweler-duped-into-buying-100g-worth-fake-gold-bars/ )

Bitcoin

- We know exactly how much Bitcoins are has been generated and how much will be generated in the future.
- We can easily verify Bitcoins are valid checking on our local nodes' Block Chain or any other website ( blockchain.info, etc )

So in my opinion Bitcoin is much much more superior then Gold in this aspect.

[theomar]

Not too far into the future gold will wort almost 0...

http://www.freeenergysystems.com/LENR_Can_Potentially_Transform_Tungsten_Into_Gold/

[greyhawk]

Not too far into the future gold will wort almost 0...

http://www.freeenergysystems.com/LENR_Can_Potentially_Transform_Tungsten_Into_Gold/

This is a hoax that's being colported since the 60s.

[theomar]

With new technologies impossible becomes possible. Sooner or later gold (not radioactive) will be created in the lab with very low cost using LENR technology.  I am not going to argue with you, just do your own search about LENR.

Is not everything about LENR a hoax. 

[theomar]

http://www.kurzweilai.net/nasa-video-on-lenr-low-energy-nuclear-reactions-a-clean-form-of-nuclear-energy

This is on Ray Kurzweil site.

[greyhawk]

http://www.kurzweilai.net/nasa-video-on-lenr-low-energy-nuclear-reactions-a-clean-form-of-nuclear-energy

This is on Ray Kurzweil site.

Kurzweil is a pattern recognition specialist and transhumanist philosopher, not a radiophysicist/chemist.

Also that is a completely different thing from "Lets make some gold".

[kokojie]

If this was done on a scale that could be manufactured I would bet you would have a second classification similar to man made diamonds.  A lot of men would be happy to buy man made gold for their ladies. 

Are you suggesting that lab diamonds are cheap? that's simply untrue, lab diamonds are often more expensive.

[amagimetals]

Gold would still be scarce. Remember, it would require resources (equipment, individuals to build the equipment, and their time) to produce the gold. Time is money!

[justusranvier]

"Scarce" means the quantity available is less than the amount we would consume if it was free.

In normal circumstances air isn't scarce because we aren't physically capable of breathing more of it than exists. Most products are scarce because if they become cheaper to obtain we'll use more of them.

[Lethn]

In the case of some stones, normally there is a microscopic laser etched mark on the inside by the manufacturer. Or, if you were going for a,"how do we know everything isn't synthetic inception type of question", my response is, who is to say that everything isn't synthetic, meaning synthetic is natural?

How does the manufacturer know?  Or are they microscopically etched inside the earth before they are dug out?  If a manufacturer added some synthetic diamonds to their inventory and etched them all natural how would you know?  If the manufacturer is honest is it not possible for somone else to etch a synthetic diamond with code for a "natural one".  You do see the obvious flaws in this system right.

It is a failing attempt to keep artificial scarcity for a product which was never that scarce to begin with and now with high quality synthetics is become less scarce over time.

BTW:  Given the amount of violence involved in blood diamonds and the near perpetual slaver that even non-conflict diamond miners live in my wife would probably be happy to pay EXTRA for a synthetic one which didn't have human misery backed into every stone.

Yep, I understand and agree with the sentiment. I think diamonds are stupid in the first place, and much prefer colored stones, as those actually have a free market around them.

Anyway, lab created gold or not, I'm getting ready for $8/Oz gold  

We'll get $8/Oz gold if we go to space and mine out the asteroids there, there's billions worth of precious metals that have been surveyed in just one or two, don't need a lab, that said, I think that the dollar will have collapsed by the time we get into space anyway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17827347

Jon Stewart even did a segment on it where he got a physicist he knew to come along and he announced it wasn't bullshit

[MrTeal]

We'll get $8/Oz gold if we go to space and mine out the asteroids there, there's billions worth of precious metals that have been surveyed in just one or two, don't need a lab, that said, I think that the dollar will have collapsed by the time we get into space anyway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17827347

Jon Stewart even did a segment on it where he got a physicist he knew to come along and he announced it wasn't bullshit

Your grandchildren's great-grandchildren will be long dead by the time gold mined in space is that inexpensive, if it ever reaches that point.

[Lethn]

Pffft I'm sure that's the kind of thing they said about flight and look what happened then, humanity needs to do this kind of thing for its survival, if we don't we'll blow each other up over the only remaining resource left on this planet.

[foggyb]

Pffft I'm sure that's the kind of thing they said about flight and look what happened then, humanity needs to do this kind of thing for its survival, if we don't we'll blow each other up over the only remaining resource left on this planet.

Off-planet mining is crazy. Its way too dangerous and expensive. Its not beyond our capabilities, but its just way out there. Totally different from building the first airplane. The Wright brother's first airplane cost $22,000 in today's dollars to build. [source]

If energy was free, and we could build bomb-proof robot spacecraft that could go 10% of the speed of light for next to nothing, then it'd be different. Mars rovers cost hundreds of millions each, and it's totally unsuitable for resource harvesting. NASA is ecstatic every time they have a successful Mars mission (and they should be).