[Philosophy] Value

[BlueCosmology]

Would you like me to go through every single step with you? I didn't think having to go to the point of showing every multiplication would be necessary but here you are. Apparently explaining it all isn't enough, I have to go through every tiny step of calculation.

To melt aluminium requires raising it to its melting point of 600C.

Aluminium has a very high specific heat for a metal of 1kJ/kgK, meaning for every degree C it's raised requires 1 kilojoule. Everyday temperature is close to 0C, so 600kJ (600*1) required to raise aluminium to melting point.

Then aswell as raising a material to melting point, there is extra energy required to melt it. I'm sure you'll of noticed before that water for instances in a freezer gets very cold much faster than it freezes. This is because of the extra energy needed for a phase change. The latent heat of fusion for aluminium is 500kJ, meaning it takes 500kJ to change solid aluminium at melting point into molten aluminium at melting point. So in total ~1100kJ (that's 600+500, the energy to get the aluminium to melting point plus the energy to melt it) are required to melt aluminium.

A heavy duty battery has 26 amp hours, an amp hour is 3.6kJ per volt. 26*4*6=100*6=600kJ contained in one battery

two batteries have double the energy, 600kJ*2=1200kJ.

So two heavy duty 6 volts batteries contain ~1200kJ.

[Fel]

I assume you're just a troll now, because not only did I not link a forum (I linked google) you then went onto link a different battery. You know heavy duty and super heavy duty are actually terms in the electronics industry right? They mean things. A super heavy duty battery IS NOT a heavy duty battery. There is a reason they have different names.

You linked to the first link on google which is a forum. Or are you saying you didn't even read the webpages just "google"?

"Heavy Duty" and "Super Heavy Duty" aren't really electronics industry terms, they're consumer advertisement terms. If anything the implication is that "super heavy duty" should have greater amp-hours than "heavy duty" which means "heavy duty" should be less than 11mAh.

Ironically, everything you are saying is ignorance. Power is entirely irrelevant in this. Again, it almost certainly wouldn't be possible with the power output of 2 lantern batteries either BUT THAT DOES NOT MATTER. The power could be anything, there is not enough energy to melt a kilo of aluminium in two lantern bateries. I have argued it with competence I have not just stated it.

Again, ignoring the idea that you can use multiple sets of batteries. I gave a fairly valid reason for only hooking two up at the same time and it is believable that the detail was omitted.

Xannari was asked if he used the batteries for the power supply or not and he stated that yes he did.

I decided to use carbon rods from 2 large batteries as electrodes.

What battery did you use.

6V heavy duty.

[Kryten]

You're being blinded by this single detail, but just look at everything else in the posts. This is a guy, in modern western society, on the internet, who claims not to have known that gold is valuable.

[Fel]

After the above comment, I claim the part quoted below to be just dishonest. You are doing inadequate nitpicking on something he didn't even say. All he said was that _regardless_ of power, the energy is not enough (and unlike you seem to imply: no power level, not even 10^100 Watts, will be enough to melt a ton of gold with a single Joule). Nothing more, nothing less.

Power is J/s, the question if it can do it at all rather than "This small aspect of what you're saying is wrong and I'll ignore all attempts to point out the possibility of multiple batteries." I've been advocating that from the perspective of the misconception, there is still enough reasonable doubt to actually TALK about it rather than repeat the same old "It just cannot."

[BlueCosmology]

You linked to the first link on google which is a forum. Or are you saying you didn't even read the webpages just "google"?

"Heavy Duty" and "Super Heavy Duty" aren't really electronics industry terms, they're consumer advertisement terms. If anything the implication is that "super heavy duty" should have greater amp-hours than "heavy duty" which means "heavy duty" should be less than 11mAh.

Ok, I'm tired of arguing with a troll now so this will be my last comment to you. Heavy duty and super heavy duty are specific terms for batteries. They have legal requirements to be specified as one. They are not just advertisement terms. If that was the case why in the world do you think people would advertise them as heavy duty when others are advertising as super heavy duty? Everyone would assume that super heavy duty are superior for energy content (which they are).

Also did you honestly just tell someone that refereed to power as watts that power is joules per second. Do you know what the word watt means?

[Fel]

You're being blinded by this single detail, but just look at everything else in the posts. This is a guy, in modern western society, on the internet, who claims not to have known that gold is valuable.

Who says he lives in western society?

I have never been in a city, so I do not know if I can agree with you confidently on the first one, though in a desert, definitely.

There is also a such thing as exaggeration for effect, sure gold is valuable, but do you know the price for 1 (torr?) of gold? Hey may have undersold somewhat and just exaggerated to make the point about value.

[Kryten]

Who says he lives in western society?

He speaks english fluently and uses a computer. That's a close enough association for him to know gold is a bit more than the less than ~50 US cents he claims to have sold it for. He'd have to be a bloody sentinelese to be that out of touch, and that's before we get into the incredible unlikeliness of just finding kg of gold lying around.

[Fel]

Ok, I'm tired of arguing with a troll now so this will be my last comment to you. Heavy duty and super heavy duty are specific terms for batteries. They have legal requirements to be specified as one. They are not just advertisement terms. If that was the case why in the world do you think people would advertise them as heavy duty when others are advertising as super heavy duty? Everyone would assume that super heavy duty are superior for energy content (which they are).

The electronics industry refers to them by code, 1209 and 509; 6V batteries designed with specific parameters to fit either of those carry that numeric label. "Super Heavy" and "Heavy" doesn't matter, mAh and battery discharge characteristics do.

Now, granted, it seems as if most 6Vs Lantern Batteries are following those two specifications, likely due to it being a niche market and all; I don't think I really had a point in that statement, I really just wanted to say "Fine, I looked up a battery with a higher mAh rating, big deal."

Also did you honestly just tell someone that refereed to power as watts that power is joules per second. Do you know what the word watt means?

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/pow.html

The standard unit for power is the watt (abbreviated W) which is a joule per second.

- - - Updated - - -

He speaks english fluently and uses a computer. That's a close enough association for him to know gold is a bit more than the less than ~50 US cents he claims to have sold it for. He'd have to be a bloody sentinelese to be that out of touch, and that's before we get into the incredible unlikeliness of just finding kg of gold lying around.

Yeah.... I'd accept that.

Really, all I can say is that I suspect it was exaggeration for effect.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Fel

[vger]

I believe individuals should be responsible for themselves. That is my entire argument. The rest is your own projections. Whatever your agenda is, I'm not on any "side" of it.

That certainly explains a lot of the confusion. I believed you were intentionally masking a layer of intent. Giving basic statements without discussing the more intricate details of it, typically leads to a lot of speculation about what a person's position on a topic really is. And then you end up with labels being tossed around that don't really reflect the person's stance at all.

Apologies.

[MunGazer]

Apologies!!!??? What the &%#$!? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

As a side note:

BATTERIES. Rec'nize.

[Brethern]

He speaks english fluently and uses a computer. That's a close enough association for him to know gold is a bit more than the less than ~50 US cents he claims to have sold it for. He'd have to be a bloody sentinelese to be that out of touch, and that's before we get into the incredible unlikeliness of just finding kg of gold lying around.

To be fair most places that buy scrap metal wouldn't buy gold at it's real market value. So selling for 50cents would be plausible if you didn't know what gold was.

[ZetaX]

Why exactly do you all seem to

a) think he is serious,

believe that he really knows it was gold (if he just sold it off, it could have been any golden metal)¿

[Xannari Ferrows]

It was gold. It weighed a kilogram [it was weighed], and it was actually quite small for it's weight. Gold is a dense material [19 g/cm^3 from memory...?] Is it not common to find a fair amount during a few sluicing trips?

Edited June 10, 2015 by Xannari Ferrows

[ZetaX]

Which brings me back to a).

[Xannari Ferrows]

Well, like I said before: "If the argument's won, the just move on. If persistence is bothersome, then fun times are sure to come." I literally don't know what else I can say, nor am I inclined to try. So, what better situation to have fun?

[MunGazer]

Just conversationally, Xannari, have you ever messed with building a back yard aluminum melting furnace? As I did some casual browsing yesterday I saw a do it yourself section on it involving a 5 gallon metal bucket for the furnace, a small propane tank with one end sawed off as the crucible, charcoal in the bottom of the furnace along with a good sized piece of pipe at the bottom and a hair dryer used to pump air into the furnace. Then there were bolts and tongs and what not to manipulate the crucible.

[Xannari Ferrows]

I have not yet, though I want to. I marathoned Grant's videos after hearing about him, and saw something of this kind. Though instead of charcoal, I'd use some cardboard and candle wax. I'm not sure how that'll go down...

Everything I've made ingots in was done through the furnace. (I secretly hoped that I was the first to come up with that, but it doesn't appear so...) As a variation, I also might try a solar powered furnace or foundry, though I'll need to whip out the big guys for that...

It's actually more fun than it sounds as well!

[Aanker]

Where did you get enough gold to melt it into anything but an insignificant amount, let alone turn it into ingots? Are you sure this wasn't pyrite or something?

[andrewas]

Pyrite doesn't melt, it decomposes. If he melted it, it was gold or an alloy that looks enough like gold to fool him. Brass maybe.

[peadar1987]

Pyrite doesn't melt, it decomposes. If he melted it, it was gold or an alloy that looks enough like gold to fool him. Brass maybe.

Or he made it up. It just all seems so unlikely.

As people have said:

-Where did he get several kilos of gold from? Did he pay for it? Find it? Mine it? I find it impossible to believe he just found it lying around, and panning for that much gold would take literally years. If he bought it, then how did he not realise it was valuable?!

-That brings us on to the next point. How did he not know gold was valuable? Like, really? I don't care if he's got some unusual value system based on some arbitrary criteria, if you have several kilos of gold, you can trade it for a huge amount of stuff that is valuable to you, no matter how useless you think it is yourself.

[YNM]

Why are we asking about melting things, while the thread was asking about value ? Are melting things have value ? (well, depends on how you parse it)

Anyway, it's clear - value is arbitrary. You get a thing on your own, and only you owns (initially) and produce it, set your own price. It'll only change as it go widespread and common. Think of iDevices. Think of some alloy. Even, think of gold and other object-currency (rocks included ! there's a case), you don't get them valuable until people realize it's "power", or because it's very unique.

[peadar1987]

Gold was originally used as currency primarily because it was rare, relatively inactive, and not particularly useful for contemporary metallurgy. It meant that people couldn't easily just make loads of their own money (as they could have if, say, iron, wood or stone was used), your money wouldn't easily corrode or tarnish, and you weren't likely to lose lots of it from circulation because some lad melted it to make a plough.

[magnemoe]

Gold was originally used as currency primarily because it was rare, relatively inactive, and not particularly useful for contemporary metallurgy. It meant that people couldn't easily just make loads of their own money (as they could have if, say, iron, wood or stone was used), your money wouldn't easily corrode or tarnish, and you weren't likely to lose lots of it from circulation because some lad melted it to make a plough.

Gold look good as jewelery and decorations while being so rare it give high status, that it don't corrode away is important, if its used its not really out of circulation, the owner can sell the item if needed.

Silver is used a lot in the same way. Copper has traditionally been used for lower value coins and had lots of uses. The important thing is that its not to heavy and not price is pretty stable.

Coins came into use to simplify trade coins has an similar weight and an guarantee for purity. Yes you could cheat but it was harder than using an nugget and also illegal.

[YNM]

But I'm quite sure gold must be an unknown thing for somewhile. Not sure whether it's true though, considering we doesn't really have a way to tell when smelting starts.

[shynung]

Not an exact year, yeah, but I think it's a safe bet that people start smelting stuff not very long after fire was discovered. It'd be as simple as throwing rocks into the fire, though occasionally molten metal would leak out of their ores if heated long enough.