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.
EDIT:
Actually I just did the math and plugged in all the known values I could find and assuming you could sell it within the first year you could probably make $700,000, so it would still be well worth it. But a lot of trouble.
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.
but what if I want one 🥺
too bad, no giant cube of tungsten 4 u
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
That would violate the Treaty of Versailles
The Catholic Church passed an edict worldwide banning the shipping of tungsten cubes larger than half a cubic meter in volume
Real answer is that it’s obscenely heavy
Secret clause in the Molotov - Ribbentrop pact
It’d weigh 75 tons assuming that to be 5ft x 5ft x 5ft
It looks like panels on a frame and not solid tungsten.
Just imagine placing this in the front yard as an ornament and watching it sink into the ground from its weight.
Assuming that’s a meter cubed it weighs 19 tons, or 65 tons for 1.5m³
I’m seeing $30,000 per ton there (as of 2018) so wouldn’t the cubic meter cost about $645,000?
They misplaced the comma or used a weird system distinct from the Western or Indian one
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 like how there’s so many comments about the value of the cube, and no two comments have the same value.
I mean if you get it in bulk it might be cheaper… but at the same time that would probably be really hard to make and take a major portion of the tungsten supply to make.
I only buy my tungsten cubes on black Friday, you’re a sucker otherwise.
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 54.7542 tons.
So this is indeed a decent prize at $18,616 USD.
All you have to do to claim your prize is get it home.
Edit: corrected to a less whelming but still difficult to transport prize thanks to chiliedogg.
You divided by 2 instead of 2000 on your pounds/tons conversion.
Good thing I’m not an accountant
Well this isn’t some mundane detail, Michael!
My immediate response was to do the same calc. But using SI units, because I don’t live in Myanmar or the USA.
I figure that it’s a cube, and judging by the size of the lucky winner, I would guess that the sides are 1.5m. 3.375m^3 at 19.254 g/cm^3 is roughly 65 tons. According to https://www.metal.com/Tungsten/202212260004 tungsten bars are trading for 49USD/kg. IDK where you got 340 USD/ton, but we seem to differ.
65 tons at 49 USD/kg is 3’185’000 USD.
I’d say that a solid homogeneous of tungsten should probably fetch a fair bit more than my price. Casting a cube like that is not going to be easy. Tungsten is rather reactive in the molten form, and has to be kept from air. Just alone keeping 65 tons of molten tungsten under a protective layer of inergen gas is going to be challenging.
No idea why the difference in price. I checked again and it still shows $340/ton on a UK site, another shows $335/ton, some higher for powders or carbide, some way lower for scrap.
I just looked it up; assuming that thing’s about 5ft³, that thing is worth like $54,000. Granted, you’re going to need somebody to come haul it off, but at 10.66k per cubic foot, I’d say it’s not a bad prize.
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
Well that seemed to be perfect, doesn’t chat gpt outsource its math to Wolfram Alpha or something now?
Wolfram is Latin for tungsten so I’d trust it more than anything else
Turns out it managed to do it right this time, so, maybe!
That I don’t know. But regardless, the LLM can’t do it :P
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
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