The grand prize
The grand prize
138 comments
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Assuming that's about 5x5', and going by the price of the first tungsten cube found on Google, this would be worth about 15 million dollars. Decent prize of you could move 150,000lb.
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Hmmm.
So the real game show is getting value out of the prize.
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Welcome to another exciting episode of CAN! YOU! FENCE THIS?!?!*
Alright contestants, this week your prize is: 600 tons of wood chips! Whoever earns the most money selling your prize will be our lucky winner and move on to round 2.
Reminds me of an impromptu back and forth prank a set of brothers used to pull on each other where they regifted each other a pair of hideous moleskin pants in increasingly elaborate ways.
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Best I can do is a copy of Battletoads
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Going with your 5' x 5' x 5' size, that should weigh about 132,624 pounds, or about 66.3 tons. The price, as of 2018, was about $30,000/ton. That works out to be about $2M.
Still a pretty heft prize.
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Didn't calculate the price by weight. Just took the number from the 6" cube here and extrapolated from that since it was the easiest math.
https://shop.tungsten.com/tungsten-cube/
The 5' cube is 1000 times the size of the 6" cube and the 6" cube is $15k. The prices don't scale up linearly though. The smaller cubes are better value by weight.
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Unless there is some clause talking about time to receive or "only the participant", then I would sell this thing at a fraction of the price and frolic into the sunset. Let someone else deal with the logistics, I just made an easy Mil.
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this would be worth about 15 million dollars
But where and to whom?
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It's about letting go...
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In reall units and currencies thats about 68 tonnes (or around 50 VW Golfs) and 13,8 Million Euros (or 1/11000 of the money we lost due to cum-ex).
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2/10 Prize 8/10 Prize if delivery is included
I can put it in the front yard, spray paint it gold, and start a neighborhood cult around The Cube.
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That cube would be in the neighborhood of 1 million dollars of tungsten
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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.
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but what if I want one 🥺
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too bad, no giant cube of tungsten 4 u
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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Can you expand on why it can't be shipped?
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That would violate the Treaty of Versailles
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The Catholic Church passed an edict worldwide banning the shipping of tungsten cubes larger than half a cubic meter in volume
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Real answer is that it's obscenely heavy
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Secret clause in the Molotov - Ribbentrop pact
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It'd weigh 75 tons assuming that to be 5ft x 5ft x 5ft
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It looks like panels on a frame and not solid tungsten.
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Assuming that's a meter cubed it weighs 19 tons, or 65 tons for 1.5m³
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NCD would probably be delighted to have something that can be turned into multiple rods from god
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You know those degens would also use those rods as a sex toy.
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If I had one of those in my living room, my house would collapse.
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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.
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I'd want to put this in front of the house. No one would steel it ever. lol
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Of course not. It's tungsten. Not steel.
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I really wanted to use Tungsten as the base ballast for a custom narrowboat, for better headroom. Other than the cost you also have the problem of tungsten’s melting point being so high you can’t pour it into a boat hull without melting through.
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You also can't melt it in general outside of some high tech magnetic field induction chambers, as doing so would melt the furnace in most cases.
Almost all industrial applications of tungsten involve electrochemistry or otherwise the mixing of fine tungsten dust.
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Sounds like a Peter Molyneux game. "And if you click on the cube, you might win another cube"
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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.
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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. 3.375m3 at 19.254 g/cm3 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.
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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.
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God, I want to drop this thing from orbit on a populated city so much.
Edit: Just as a prank tho.
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I like how there's so many comments about the value of the cube, and no two comments have the same value.
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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.
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I only buy my tungsten cubes on black Friday, you're a sucker otherwise.
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The cube is so heavy, it presses a hole into the floor.
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Just imagine placing this in the front yard as an ornament and watching it sink into the ground from its weight.
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Please deliver this to my moon base
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I have a cube of tungsten at work that is 40mm x 40 mm, it is comedically heavy. This thing would be nuts.
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I have a cube
That is 40mm x 40mm
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Throw it in the water! I want to se what happens!
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It sinks.
Tungsten isn't reactive with water, it's not an alkali metal.
Sodium, lithium, potassium etc (alkali metals) would react violently with water though.
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A frankium cube that big would be neat. Only downside is, that half of it is decayed after like 7 Minutes(if I remember correctly)
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Just to be a troublemaker, everyone is assuming this a solid cube, but what if it was something like 1/4 inch tungsten plates and hollow in the middle?
What would it weigh? Would it float in water?
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But property is theft, so now you are under arrest
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I need tungsten to live!
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All I can think of, sorry.
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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.
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I see why he's smiling
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Why the heck are you giving an llm a math problem?
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138 comments