this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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I don't think they mean silicon, I think they mean gold, which is also a crucial component to electronics.
Gold also isn't all that rare. It's value is so high because of jewelry marketing, not rarity.
Gold is rare, compared to just about every other element, in accessible areas of earth. All the gold ever discovered on Earth would fit inside a 23 meter (75 foot) cube. This is about 244 thousand tons, in all of human history.
Compare this to iron, where just the United States produces 46 Million tons in 2022 alone.
There is plenty of gold deep within the Earth - it is very dense, so it sank towards the core when Earth was recently formed - but on the surface and the proximal crust, it is not found in abundance.
Is that 23mx23mx23m or 23 cubic meters?
The first one, 23x23x23
Those...Are the same thing?
Edit: I thought they meant 23x23x23 as in dimensions not multiples
23x23x23 is 12167 cubic meters.
Okay I see where I fucked that up
That is a mind blowing fact about all gold fitting in 23 cubic meters. I had to fact check it because it sounds so absurd: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21969100
You may be confusing with diamonds. Gold is, and in fact, any element heavier than iron are pretty rare because they cannot be created by stars alone according to current models, they need more extreme and rare astrophysics phenomenons like supernova and black holes.
Yes I think that is the exact confusion I had.