gold production

[Vimto]

i once read in a south african gold promotional magazine that all the gold produced in the history of the world would fit in the space occupied by three double decker buses. this was about twenty years ago so that it might be a lttle more now but has anyone anything to contribute to the veracity of this statement?

[paddiez]

True. About 1/4 of a bus more since then.

[heathfield]

And just think, it's still all around, somewhere!

[carmalee]

well I have a gold nugget mounted as a brooch and that's not going in the bus! Also have the permit to own it as it's raw gold, exactly as it came out of the ground and interestingly enough a completely different colour to normal jewellery.

[mallam]

So what was the cubic capacity of the palace room that Atahualpa filled chock-a-block with gold from the Inca Empire alone for his ransom before the Conquistadores ratted and killed him anyway, going on to melt down all the exquisite artefacts for filthy lucre?

[Azalian]

The total world supply is about 158,000 tonnes.

Gold weighs 545.225 kg per cubic foot,(sorry for mixing metric with imperial measures)

So it would take up a cube about 66 x 66 x 66 =287496 cubic feet.

A double decker is (roughly) 8 x 15 x 30 cubic feet = 1200
so it would need 438 buses to contain it all.

[mallam]

You apparently missed my post, Az, but you have vindicated the point I was trying to make in it! How can people say and believe such rot as 4 buses? Even without the benefit of your arithmetical underpinnings, how can they not find it totally counterintuitive?

[Vimto]

you musn't become so prickly mallam, I was simply begging the question and azalian, you really must look towards your arithmatic: 8 x 15 x 30 was not 1200 when I went to school and even if it was , 287,496 divided by 1200 is not 438. Maybe you are a schoolteacher and use some new form of mathematics but then I could become accused of becoming a lttle bit prickly myself and I do like to keep things nice and friendly. Could we have a second (or third) opinion on this?

[mallam]

So-rry. I was 'tired and emotional'. But obviously the second (or third) opinion on this cannot be mine: I didnt even check Az's arith! (Tho I suppose you might say that my reference to having the benefit of his arithmetical underpinnings indicates some measure of healthy scepticism.)

But my dear Vimto, I'm afraid I may still get prickly if you say "begging the question" when you mean "posing the question" or even plain "asking the question"! That solecism is one of my shibboleths.

[Vimto]

Oh, that's what I like to see - a true pedant - quite a rarity these days. I beg pardon and promise to watch my p's and q's.
But what about the gold? Will some South African gold-fevered mine owner or maybe a Russian oligarc please favour us with an expert's view?

[mallam]

Let�s hope you have achieved the resurrection of the dead on this thread, vim, as you would have done simply by posting to it, if this were any sort of sensible site with fit-for-purpose software.

But please not a pedant, vim, especially since your claim that that's what you like to see is no doubt sardonic! A precisian is what I am, or try to be (OED def 2: �A person who is rigidly precise or punctilious in the observance of rules or forms; a purist, a stickler, a pedant� � the �pedant� and indeed some of the other terms are regrettable, but to reflect the distinction that currently holds between these terms in the relevant circles �pedant� at least will probably need redefinition in the next edition).

Of course, you may prefer to say I am beyond description!

You may already have seen evidence of my precisianism on here, but if you don't like it, you must challenge me at every turn. You will find I hate pedantry as much as anyone. How could I not? My field is theoretical and descriptive linguistics, where �prescriptivism� is anathema.

[mallam]

But descriptivism has got as out of control as Political Correctness! It has reached the point at which it is just the laissez-faire consignment of language to grey goo. But it is in a very real sense a sort of opposite number to Political Correctness: PC tells people what to say and what not to say, and descriptivism tells people not to tell people what to say and what not to say, but to encourage them to settle for approximating to human language in whatever way they choose, and leave it to accelerated natural selection to sort out. No brakes, no speed limits, no traffic control or policing of any sort, no oil, no repairs, no rust-proofing, any old fuel, any old customizations, go-faster stripes with ever more sticky-out spikes, bull bars with non-retractable electric cattle prods, or whirring samurai swords, and the language is GOING PLACES. Places from which last Monday�s Times and Independent will be totally beyond reach, and the whole of 20th century literature with them, never mind going back to <gasp> Shakespeare or even beyond!

Of course, to say this to the advocates of either brand of thought control invites excommunication, but there it is: I have said it.

My fear is for communication itself. Language is nothing but a system of systems of opposition, or differences. It always has grown and continues to grow by letting those distinctions be fruitful and multiply, and many of them have always fallen by the wayside of natural selection. All this is normal, right and proper, and the only way language can in practice evolve � PC, Orwellian Newspeak, or whatever are only ever blips.

[mallam]

In places and times when there was little or no literacy or even written language, speed of evolution was probably beneficially productive, and if the only literature was oral literature, so that it was not literacy but oracy that was the crucial form of culture, the oracy of necessity evolved in tandem with the language, but since the development of literacy and literature, it is for all practical purposes � and I mean practical � natural selection itself that has kept the brakes on. Do we really want to do a U-turn and career headlong back into the Dark Ages?

In the case of �beg the question� vs �pose/ask the question� we have a prime example of the sort of structural distinction which is one of the building blocks of our minds, culture, and civilization � in fact of our world. It means, to quote OED (under petitio principii), �The employment in an argument of a premise which either presupposes or is equivalent to the conclusion which is at issue; the fallacy of begging the question; an instance of this, a circular argument�, as opposed to just raising a question!

Post-classical philosophy has given us a distinction here which has been a mainstay of logic and law in this country (and others) for our entire history. We cannot just chuck it out!

As for the gold, I don�t think Az was so far wrong.