What if the World turned to Gold? - The Gold Apocalypse

In the Kurzgesagt laboratories we only work on very serious scientific problems, such as: "What happens if we bomb something with a nuclear bomb?" or "Maybe we should fly this elephant?", or the unforgettable "Look at this thing, it's huge." Continuing this proud tradition, let's explore the scientific mystery of

what

would happen to you if the Earth suddenly

turned

to

gold

. "Midaspocalypse" is based on the ancient story of King Midas, who was cursed and everything he touched

turned

to

gold

. Before we begin to explore this scenario through science, we will first define

what

we are talking about. The Midas Curse is a very special phenomenon called magic that allows us to change physics.

What happens when Midas touches something and turns it into gold? A gold atom has 79 protons and 118 neutrons in its nucleus. The electrical force of the protons on the surrounding electrons forms the atom and gives gold its chemical properties, for example, it does not oxidize and is shiny and malleable. So to turn something that is not gold into gold, we have to change its atoms. Suppose Midas touches a duck. All light elements such as hydrogen, carbon and oxygen gain electrons, protons and neutrons to become gold. Suddenly, the duck is 33 times heavier and denser. The gold atoms are packed closer together than they would like and push violently against each other, causing the golden duck to explode with half a ton of TNT energy, leaving only gold dust and a dead Midas.

Obviously, this is not a good way for the Midas power to work. But what if, instead, Midas' power used already existing atoms to simply change the location of every particle of matter he touched and turn them into gold? Matter is not created or destroyed, only atoms melt and protons, neutrons and electrons recombine to form gold. But gold is very dense, 20 times denser than a duck. If we didn't add any substances, the golden duck would be a clumsy, sparkling gold with many microscopic holes. It's fun, but not explosive. This means development. Now that we've created some sort of spell that works normally, what if Midas suddenly trips and hits the Earth?

Let's freeze time for a moment and rearrange all the matter on Earth. Like the duck, the Earth is now completely golden, but there are many gaps at the atomic scale. While these lagoons are not a big problem for the duck, they are a big problem for the Earth. A sponge-like planet cannot exist because gravity would squeeze the Earth and seal gaps in the mantle. As a result, the Earth shrinks to two-thirds of its radius. If you are standing on the surface of the Earth, you will suddenly find yourself in free fall like a roller coaster because the ground beneath your feet is slipping.

But the ground beneath your feet falls with you, so it doesn't move away from you, as if someone turned off gravity and everything, including you, started floating in the air. But this trip doesn't last forever, it only takes 10 minutes for everything to reach the ground, a very strange 10 minutes. And then it stops as suddenly as it started. The collapsing

world

has reached the desired size and gravity has returned. We hope you enjoyed your minutes floating like Earth and with it your body exploded and dispersed like a water balloon crashing into the planet at 30,000 kilometers per hour.

In an instant, all of humanity turned into red puddles. But this is just the beginning of our problems, as the Earth has exploded inward at supersonic speeds. The kinetic energy of the explosion is equivalent to the explosion of a planet made of TNT. Crushed by incredible force, the Earth's core reaches millions of degrees Celsius. This is closer to the temperature of a star's core than anything we see on Earth. When the Earth crashes into itself, it creates a huge, powerful shock wave that smashes everything upward and hurls the atmosphere into space. The temperature of the Earth's surface reaches hundreds of thousands of degrees and everything on it evaporates, turning into a bulging plasma cloud that immediately begins to expand, but not by much.

Most of the potentially new atoms mix in this cloud, while others boil away and escape from the atmosphere. The golden plasma emits more light than the sun and the massive radiation launches tons of material into space. Over the next few days, the plasma cloud cools and eventually turns into a glowing golden ball. Well, maybe that kind of magic doesn't work. If swapping atoms makes the Earth too dense and explodes, and tearing apart and reassembling atoms makes the Earth too thin and collapses, there must be a weak point where neither of these things happen. But what if the power of Midas was like this: an object is suddenly replaced by another object of the same volume made of solid gold?

This spell is more magical and makes our work even easier. But let's see where it takes us. Then Midas stumbles again, and our new Earth of pure gold, although neither expanding nor contracting, suddenly becomes heavier. The density of gold is 3.5 times that of the Earth, which means that the Earth will also be 3.5 times heavier. For starters, everyone now has to resist gravity, which is three times stronger. Unless you are a champion weightlifter and are used to carrying loads several times your body weight on your shoulders, your own weight is likely to knock you down. Depending on where you are when the earth turns gold, it can seriously injure you or even kill you.

Trees and man-made structures will collapse under an attack they can never withstand, and birds, planes, and anything that can fly will fall to the ground. And you're not the only one crushed by the increased gravity. The weight and pressure of the atmosphere increases about 4 times, which is bad if you like to live. It won't kill you on its own. Divers can breathe comfortably at these pressures for a while, but unfortunately the compression of the atmosphere causes the temperature to rise to 150 degrees Celsius, which is like the inside of an oven. The entire surface of the Earth is burning everything and everyone.

There is no escape. Gold may be a metal, but it is about three times weaker and softer than steel, making it a very poor mountain material. The tallest mountains that can be supported are now only two kilometers high. That is, all mountain ranges shrink because their own weight crushes them. It's hard to say what will happen next. We will most likely experience massive earthquakes and landslides as the planet takes on a new shape. And these changes will not only occur in the mountain ranges, but the difference in height between continents and oceans will be the same.

This will cause ocean basins to overflow and send huge waves to the Earth's surface. What would be left would be a golden planet covered in an ocean 3 kilometers deep, a very hot atmosphere and many dead. Hmm, there's something to learn from this, but we're not sure what it is. But we've done all the math, it's in our source file if you want to take a look. If you learned something from this video, let us know. As you know, the things we sell in our store are the reason we can share videos for free. But for us it is more than that.

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