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A man’s wife commits suicide and he then goes on to marry a young, attractive but incompatible woman who drives him into the ground both mentally and financially. Add to this the outcome of a failing World War I effort and you might get the beginnings of a man who’s losing his marbles.
Which is great news for science, because it might be that only people who are on their way to becoming a fully fledged Bedlamite are daring/insane enough to try and probe further into some of the most far fetched theories.
To illustrate this, we can discuss the commonly accepted science that oceans are made up not just of plain H2O water, but also include a vast array of other materials such as diluted salts, minerals and metal elements.
“Metal elements?” you say? “Gold is a metal element isn’t it?”
Yes indeed it is. An unverified source reads that the world’s oceans contain about six milligrams of gold per tonne of water. Which appears, on the surface, to be quite believable. Given the vast amount of water in the world’s oceans it would seem that six milligrams of gold per tonne of water equates to infinite wealth to anyone who can master a method to filter this gold out.
However, only a person of most unsound mind or driven by extreme greed (i.e. the desire to quickly pay off Germany’s World War I debts to the sum of 132 million gold Deutschmarks) would attempt such a gigantic and risk laden task.
Enter Fritz Haber. The renowned chemist who’d so far, via synthesis of fixed nitrogen from the atmosphere, saved the world from starvation (and later fueled Germany’s war efforts.) After his earlier successes, poor old Fritz seemed to have lost his mind and believed it would be magnificent if he could somehow use a chemical, or electrochemical, method to achieve this lofty goal to bring unfathomed amounts of gold back to Germany.
Good news for Fritz: there was actually a technique in existence for this which was known by Babylonians as ‘cupellation.’ In cupellation, lead sulfide is used to precipitate the gold from the water, and the resulting mix of lead and gold can be purified by burning off the lead.
Fantastic. One would think. Until it is tried on a sizable scale. Fritz and his team took to the seas to try exactly this. After five years of failures, Fritz finally gave up in 1927 and concluded that 1) after five years, he had still not managed to make the plan feasible and 2) the data where he got the original idea from was most likely to be incorrect.
Unfortunately, he did not even bother to publish most of the data he collected during the time. I guess the world could sure do with some new data to carry on this lofty challenge. Much respect to Fritz Haber too. We might be needing a new such thinker very soon (to be covered in later blog posts).
The madness: Believing that something exists without solid proof?
The act: Spending millions of somebody else’s dollars to try and prove it.
The legacy: It is still unproven as to whether this problem can be solved. In theory it can. What do you think?
Is anyone crazy enough to continue? The challenge is there folks. Just remember your economics teachings when you are rapidly bringing more gold into the world.
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July 18th, 2009
Yep. So this is the way to butcher Shakespeare:
All the world’s a start-up,
And all the employees and employers merely players:
They have their exits and their seed funding;
And one entrepreneur in his time plays many roles,
His acts being of many ages. At first the visionary,
Thinking and daydreaming during his employer’s time.
And then the prototyping, with his midnight oil
And bloodshot eyes in the morning, creeping like snail
To his day job. And then the demonstrator,
Pitching like furnace, with a profitable ballad
Made to his uncle’s bank account. Then the formation
Full of strange mission statements and, once again, bearded like a student,
Coding for honor, sudden and quick with their development,
Seeking the dot com bubble revival
Even in the recession’s mouth. And then the profits,
In fair compensation to all that pledged their allegiance,
With eyes excitable and suit of formal cut,
Full of presentations and modern technologies;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts,
Into the lean and slipper’d consultant,
With spectacles on nose and iphone on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his restless mind; and excitable voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
For another crazy idea that may shape history,
Is second willing to do it all again,
Sans fear, sans self-doubt, sans worries, sans regrets.
(feel free to add suggestions for changes of lines)
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May 31st, 2009
They are often advertised in the newspaper, in the tabloids or hidden away somewhere in the back of the paper where the advertising comes cheap (rat #1. why would a rich organization need cheapo advertising?). Some other tell tale signs are:
- Usually “FREE” (note that the word ‘free’ will be in capitals, larger than the other fonts, colourful, etc). In Singapore the ‘free’ statement would usually be in one of those awful clipart explosions ala:
- Repeat the word ’success’ over and over again.
- Show pictures of ’success’ cheezy grins, happy families, high performance sports cars, you name it. All the stuff they want you to want.
- Picture of a young smug guy/girl in a shirt and tie who “made it.” (note to self: When I make a shedload of money, no more shirt and tie… only shorts and tee-shirt for my private beach/island)
- Overuse of words like ‘freedom’ and ‘destiny’
- Trading mistakes that your brokers don’t want you to know! (really? because I would have thought if I get rich then my broker gets rich too, no?)
- Limited seats! Register Now! (don’t fall behind okay!)
and best of all
- Make money and become a millionaire in just 20 minutes a day. (That would be awesome! If I spend 8 hours a day, that means I can be worth $24 million easily). Something isn’t right here.
Even if there is a magic way to make loads of risk free money out of shares; can all of this free information can be condensed into a one day seminar? If so, are those people on a two year masters degree in financial engineering wasting their time and money? They could just go for a one day seminar instead!
So many rats. Dear oh dear. Know any others?
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April 20th, 2009
When we say “No Idea” does it mean that we have no idea? Or does it mean, “give me a moment I’m thinking of a solution?”
Sometimes this concept might be lost in translation. A non-anglophone might interpret it as meaning “I don’t know,” thus giving the impression of incompetency.
I learned recently that saying “Not Bad” in a Chinese context actually means “Really Good!” whereas in our English world it could simply mean what it states: “Not bad, not amazing… acceptable.” (unless we change our tone with it).
I guess we must be careful with our words when speaking to non-native speakers of our own language.
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March 24th, 2009
WordPress is a wonderful tool for blogging. I hope to make good use of it!
Mark
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January 26th, 2008