What is the most expensive thing in the world by weight? My guess is something like Lawrencium. If it is even stable enought to sell. So what is the expensive thing by weight? How much does/did it cost?
I don’t know how much it cost (doubtless millions) but two atoms of element #118 were made a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, they had half lives of under a millisecond, so it is hard to judge.
Then there is unicorn blood.
I don’t think the question has a meaningful answer.
Probably antimatter, at an estimated 25 billion dollars per gram, with current technology. This is about 1000 times the cost of the equivalent energy generated through conventional means.
The Master says Californium-252, but that’s a 30-year old column so things may have changed by now.
Does information count? There must be software source code, military passwords etc., that would fetch billiions, and fit on a really really light memory storage device.
How much is my sense of youthful optimism worth? I wish to insure it, in case I lose it later.
I think it was three atoms – one in 2002 and two in 2005. Not only is it expensive to produce, but you don’t know it existed until long after it has gone. (You need to analyse photographs of the tracks of atoms as they decay into other atoms and subatomic particles).
I suspect that we will never be able to know that there is an atom of Element 118 in existence at the present moment, just that some used to exist at some time in the past. So we’ll probably never know some basic properties, like whether it’s a gas at normal temperatures and pressures like Radon is – because we won’t have enough atoms simultaneously in existence to show the properties of a gas.
(And it’s possible that the three atoms recently observed are the only one that have existed in the history of the universe – but how can we know?)
Seriously, dude- what’s with all the General Questions? You seem to start at least one a day, and you rarely participate in the ensuing discussion.
WildfireMM** seems to do exactly the same thing, and I keep wanting to ask HIM, as well.
Among things that you as a consumer can buy, swallow’s nests are rather spendy at $2000 a nest (don’t know how much a solitary one weighs, but probably not a lot).
Not that I’m aware of the OP’s other questions, but how should the OP participate here? Presumably he’s asking a question, then reading the answers, getting some ideas of where to look, or how to clarify. I thought it was an interesting question, and had I asked it, I would not be able to add much to the ensuing discussion.
Unobtainium.
Is that an African or a European swallow?
[sub]Oh, come on, somebody had to do it.[/sub]
A good reputation for honesty and doing right. It weighs nothing in physical terms, and can not be bought for any amount of money no matter how much!
Turns out it’s not a swallow at all, but rather a swiftlet.
Any service, which weighs nothing, goes at a price of infinity dollars per pound. Kind of hard to beat.
Unless you calculate precisely how much energy that squeegee kid expends to wash your windshield, and from there use the proper equations to discover the equivalent amount of mass.
Do you guys need a refresher on the definition of a thing?
Very true. When I’m seeing things, I’m pretty sure said hallucinations have no mass.
Righto, maybe we can add a few ground rules that would make it a more useful question
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It has to be an actual thing not an idea, not a service, but a physical object.
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It has to be durable, nothing that decays after a fraction of a second. Something that you can buy, take home and use before it goes away. Say, a shelf life of at least 12 hours.
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Something generic, not a unique item. Don’t say “The Mona Lisa”
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Something that is actually obtainable. Don’t say “dust from the rings of Saturn” as (I don’t think) any specimens actually exist on Earth.
Well, since you said weight, not mass… hydrogen.
Uh uh, no fair putting it in metal canisters. You just stack up those hydrogen molecules on the scale over there, and keep track of how much I owe you, and I’ll shout out as soon as you’ve brought in enough to register on the scale, OK?
How about a moon rock? Maybe that’s kind of like the Mona Lisa, and I don’t know if any have ever been legally sold. (I think it’s illeagal for Americans to own one)