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Here in the Kurzgesagt labs

we only work on

the most important scientific problems like

“What if we nuke stuff”

or “how about

we make this elephant explode”

or

who could forget

“look at this thing.

It’s really big.”

Continuing this proud tradition,

let’s explore the scientific mystery of what

would happen to you,

if Earth suddenly turned into gold!

The “Midaspocalypse”,

based on the ancient tale of King Midas

who was cursed

so everything he touched

turned into gold

Before we can explore this scenario

with science,

we’ll first define the premise.

Midas’s curse is a very special phenomenon,

called magic,

which allows us to modify physics.

So what happens when midas touches

something and it turns to gold?

[Music]

An atom of gold has 79 protons and 118 neutrons in its nucleus

The electric force of the protons on the electrons around them

shapes the atom

and gives gold its chemical properties,

like that it doesn’t rust,

and that it’s kind of shiny and bendy.

So, to make not-gold into gold,

we have to change atoms.

Let’s say Midas touches a duck.

All the light elements like hydrogen,

carbon, and oxygen

gain electrons and protons and neutrons

to become gold.

Not only is the duck

suddenly 33 times more massive

it’s also much too dense.

The gold atoms are far

closer together than they like

and repel each other violently

causing the golden duck to explode with

the energy of half a ton of TNT,

leaving only gold dust

and a very dead Midas.

This is clearly not a very good way for

Midas’ power to work.

So what if instead

Midas’ power uses the

atoms that are already present

and simply rearranges all particles in

the matter he touches, into gold.

No matter is created or destroyed,

instead atoms dissolve and the protons,

neutrons, and electrons are reassembled

to make gold

however gold is very dense,

about 20 times denser than a duck.

Without adding any matter

the gold duck

would be a very awkward kind of foamy gold

with lots of tiny microscopic gaps,

this is funky and doesn’t explode,

which is progress.

Now that we’ve established a sort of

magic that works,

what would happen if Midas stumbles,

what if he touches Earth itself?

Let’s freeze time for just a moment,

and rearrange

all the matter in the Earth.

Just like the duck,

the Earth is now solid gold,

but with many tiny atomic-scale gaps.

While these gaps weren’t a huge deal for the duck,

they’re a big problem for the Earth.

A spongy planet is not a thing that can exist,

as gravity compresses Earth,

squeezing it together to close up the gaps.

As a result,

the Earth contracts,

shrinking to two-thirds of its radius.

If you’re standing on Earth’s surface,

you’ll suddenly find yourself in free fall,

like on a roller coaster,

as the ground sinks away beneath you.

But since the ground is falling too,

it doesn’t move away from you,

it feels like someone turned off gravity

and you and everything else would begin to float

but the ride doesn’t last forever,

it takes only 10 minutes for everything to

crash down,

and a weird 10 minutes it is indeed.

And then,

as abruptly as it started,

it stops.

The collapsing earth has reached its desired size

and gravity is suddenly turned back on for you.

Hopefully you enjoyed your minutes of floating

because the ground and you with it

crash into the planet

at 30,000 kilometers an hour,

making your body spatter like a water balloon

as it hits.

In one instant basically all

of humanity gets smashed into red puddles.

This is only the start of our problems though,

since Earth imploded supersonically.

the kinetic energy of the implosion is basically

equivalent to detonating a planet made of TNT.

Crushed together under incredible forces,

Earth’s core

reaches a million degrees celsius

a temperature closer to the core of a star

than anything we’re used to finding on Earth.

As the earth ‘crashes into itself’

it generates an enormously powerful shockwave

which plows upwards,

catapulting the atmosphere up and off.

The earth’s surface temperature

reaches hundreds of thousands of degrees,

and everything on it is instantly vaporized

to a fluffy plasma cloud that starts to expand,

but not by much

many of the atoms that may have been new

you get mixed into this cloud,

while others boil off, escaping from the atmosphere.

The golden plasma outshines the sun

while the enormous radiation lifts tons

of material off into space.

Over the coming days

the plasma cloud cools,

and eventually freezes into a shiny

little golden ball.

Okay,

maybe this type of magic doesn’t work

so if replacing atoms made the Earth so

over dense that it exploded

and disassembling and reassembling atoms

made the earth so under dense that it imploded,

there must be a sweet spot where the Earth does neither

what if Midas power is such that an object

is suddenly replaced by an object

with the same volume

made from solid gold.

That magic is a little bit more magic,

and cuts a few extra corners

but let’s see where this leads us

so Midas stumbles again,

Even though our new

pure gold Earth is not expanding or

contracting,

it’s suddenly much more massive.

The density of gold

is three and a half times greater than the earth,

meaning the earth

is going to get three and a half times more massive!

For starters,

everyone now has to contend

with surface gravity

that is more than three times stronger,

so if you’re not a champion weightlifter

who’s used to carrying around a few

times your body weight on your shoulders,

you’re probably going to be slammed to

the ground by your own weight.

Depending on where you were

when earth turned into gold,

this alone could seriously hurt or even kill you.

Trees and artificial structures collapse

under stress they were never meant to sustain

while birds and planes and all things

that were able to fly or float

splash to the ground all around you.

And you’re not the only thing weighed down by the greater gravity.

The weight of the atmosphere,

and also atmospheric pressure,

nearly quadruples,

which is a bad thing if you like living.

On its own, this won’t kill you

scuba divers can comfortably breathe

air at these pressures for a while,

but unfortunately squeezing the

atmosphere this much raises its

temperature to 150 degrees Celsius,

which is like the insides of an oven.

The entire earth’s surface bakes,

roasting anything and everything.

There is no escape.

Gold may be a metal

but it is about three times weaker than steel,

and also very malleable,

which makes it very bad mountains material

the tallest mountains that can be supported are now only about two kilometers high.

so whole ranges compress

as their own weight basically crushes their base.

it’s hard to say what happens here

We’re probably in for giant earthquakes and landslides

as the planet is squeezed into a new shape.

And it’s not just mountain ranges

the differences between the continents

and the ocean floor level out,

causing the ocean basins to overflow,

sending massive tidal waves over the

Earth’s surface.

What remains is a planet made from gold,

entirely covered by an ocean 3 kilometers deep,

a super hot atmosphere

and a lot of dead people.

Hmm ok,

there may be a lesson to take away here

but we’re not sure what it is!

We did all the maths though,

it’s in our sources document if you want to take a look.

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