I like how there’s so many comments about the value of the cube, and no two comments have the same value.
Let’s say that cube is 4.5’ a side. That’s 91.125 cu ft. Tungsten weighs 1,201.738 lb/cu ft. Which means the cube weighs 109,508.38 lb.
That’s an impressively sturdy floor.
Currently, tungsten is selling at about $340 USD/ton.
The block weighs 54,754.19 tons.
So this is indeed a fantastic prize at $18,616,425 USD.
All you have to do to claim your prize is get it home.
You divided by 2 instead of 2000 on your pounds/tons conversion.
Good thing I’m not an accountant
NCD would probably be delighted to have something that can be turned into multiple rods from god
Please deliver this to my moon base
If I had one of those in my living room, my house would collapse.
2/10 Prize 8/10 Prize if delivery is included
I can put it in the front yard, spray paint it gold, and start a neighborhood cult around The Cube.
How does one join the cult for The Cube?
One must simply gaze upon the glory of The Cube. The Cube will invite you in, keep you warm, keep you safe. The Cube welcomes all. The Cube just wants to share.
Cube!
Cube is life.
You ain’t putting it anywhere. It’s getting delivered and staying where they put it.
A single 5 foot cube of tungsten would weigh about as much as an above average sized single family home.
I assume dumped on the yard would be the only delivery option.
That cube would be in the neighborhood of 1 million dollars of tungsten
I’m betting I got it a few months before someone can gather the equipment to steal it. It would have outlived its novelty and likely be a burden at that point. If the cult works out The Cube should be self sufficient and could even become a profitable local attraction.
A tungsten cube that size would weigh a fuckload.
To just deliver it would be an undertaking. There will be roads between you and the where ever this came from that are not rated for that weight.
You may need a specialized truck just to move it, and a crane to get it on and off said truck…
If they won’t deliver The Cube at their expense, they should have given out a more reasonable prize.
It’s a challenge prize.
“Oh you think you won The Cube? Then come and get it”.Then three months later a new person wins The Cube.
That is… surprisingly little. Are you sure?
I mean, I can only estimate it’s size from the person standing next to it. From there I can use that estimate to get the volume of the cube, then the weight, then look up the cost by weight right now and apply the average.
So it would be somewhere around 1mm by weight.
This could possibly be the worst possible prize. Raw tungsten isn’t actually that expensive. What’s expensive is working with it as it melts 3,410c (6,170f) isn’t very malleable and is heavy like really really heavy to move this block you will probably need larger equipment than standard industrial moving equipment, bigger trucks and loaders also you’ll need to get the city’s permission to haul it on the roads , that alone is probably going to cost more than the cube is worth you will then have to pay a monthly storage fee until someone wants to buy it. Shouldn’t be that long right? It’s a valuable metal… well good luck finding a company that works with tungsten outside of china, and you absolutely can not ship it. But let’s assume you find someone who wants it(at a considerable discount) well now you have to higher the specialized movers again.
I wonder if there’s a foundry in the world with a crucible that can hold, melt, and pour that much tungsten? To make a 5 foot solid cube.
Then imagine trying to machine the damn thing square.
Rocket nozzles are commonly made of tungsten, there are more than a few manufacturers in the US. Drill bits can be made of tungsten carbide. Armor piercing weapons use tungsten too. All of these have industries in the US.
Drill bits are coated in tungsten carbide. Sometimes. There are a variety of coatings.
The drill bits you’re buying at the big box store are high speed still with some kind of coating to help them last a little longer. The specialty drill bits you’re buying for working on metal are also HSS with a different coating and probably different tip geometry.
End mills are milling/lathe inserts can be HSS or carbide, also with some tungsten coating. Importantly, these are sintered, and made out of dust.
Tungsten carbide is waaaay too brittle to work as a drill bit.
Like, no. All sorts of carbide bits, including drill bits.
Lot of tungsten producers and recyclers in the US, kennemetal for instance. They would be happy to come get that cube, might have to crack it into smaller pieces.
https://drillbitsusa.com/product-category/solid-carbide-drill-bits/
You don’t use solid carbide drill bits with a hand drill but with mills and cnc machines.
Spoken like a true tungsten connoisseur.
The company I worked for made tungsten nozzles, they had to be welded using atomic hydrogen welding. One day a bottle of hydrogen shows up and receiving rejected it, we had the supplier label it protium and it went right through.
but what if I want one 🥺
Then good news you can buy it! But you’ll have to commission it’s very specialized construction, and pay to have it shipped across seas… you know that thing I said you absolutely could not do, well with money all things are possible.
too bad, no giant cube of tungsten 4 u
Don’t forget having to pay income tax on the original retail value of the cube (assuming this is USA where lottery and prizes are taxable gains)
Can you expand on why it can’t be shipped?
It’d weigh 75 tons assuming that to be 5ft x 5ft x 5ft
Real answer is that it’s obscenely heavy
Secret clause in the Molotov - Ribbentrop pact
The Catholic Church passed an edict worldwide banning the shipping of tungsten cubes larger than half a cubic meter in volume
That would violate the Treaty of Versailles
All I can think of, sorry.
Sounds like a Peter Molyneux game. “And if you click on the cube, you might win another cube”
I really wanted to use Tungsten as the base ballast for a custom narrowboat, for better headroom. Other than the cost you also have the problem of tungsten’s melting point being so high you can’t pour it into a boat hull without melting through.
You also can’t melt it in general outside of some high tech magnetic field induction chambers, as doing so would melt the furnace in most cases.
Almost all industrial applications of tungsten involve electrochemistry or otherwise the mixing of fine tungsten dust.
Aircraft use tungsten ballast plates. I know it requires hardware, but would that have been viable?
Possible but the expense ruined my plans in the end… I did consider collecting broken tungsten end mills and inserts from machine shops and throwing them in molten lead, like croutons in a lead soup.
It’s being teleported to your location as we speak. I hope you don’t mind it would redesign a couple of floors below you.
I see why he’s smiling
Why the heck are you giving an llm a math problem?
Yeah pretty sure everything people are using llms to calculate can be calulated easily with wolfram alpha.
Edit: ive checked yes you just type it in and it does it for you, and it says 3million instead of 2.6 and i will trust wolfram not chatgpt
Lazy
LLMs can’t actually do math…
They can do it better than I can at 7 am. I just sit there and drool looking at my screen
I just asked it and it says that it can.
Checkmate.
Yep, read it and weep, haters:
I find it to be very annoying to use for linear algebra, statistics, finance, and differential equations. Mostly because it often makes rounding errors or halucinates a number/process.
Ask it if it can write instructions on how to multiply those numbers without a calculator
It said “yeah”.
Double checkmate.
Damn yo
I can’t debate that
Well that seemed to be perfect, doesn’t chat gpt outsource its math to Wolfram Alpha or something now?
Turns out it managed to do it right this time, so, maybe!
Wolfram is Latin for tungsten so I’d trust it more than anything else
That I don’t know. But regardless, the LLM can’t do it :P
The cube is so heavy, it presses a hole into the floor.
Throw it in the water! I want to se what happens!
It sinks.
Tungsten isn’t reactive with water, it’s not an alkali metal.
Sodium, lithium, potassium etc (alkali metals) would react violently with water though.
A frankium cube that big would be neat. Only downside is, that half of it is decayed after like 7 Minutes(if I remember correctly)
I was remembering it wrong. Oops. In chemistry class, we had a professor who put a cube of some material into water and it skidded along the surface making very angry noises. Can’t remember which element that was.
Probably Potassium
K
Good luck retrieving your giant tungsten payday from the murky depths now.
