Posted on 11/30/2012 4:50:13 AM PST by arthurus
Williams draws on the Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap – the longest running theatrical production ever – where by and large the identity of the killer was kept secret for more than 50 years, through exhortations to the audience at the end of each performance not to reveal it so as not to spoil the twist in the tale for new audiences. This was adhered to by critics and audiences alike until eventually it was published in Wikipedia (reminiscent perhaps more of Wikileaks). Williams’ point being that the secret of the true state of Central Bank gold reserves is still being kept – but eventually will come out.
(Excerpt) Read more at mineweb.com ...
Hmm, maybe this explains why the price of tungsten shot up about twenty years ago. Perhaps there was a sudden need for large numbers of fake gold bars
You could be very right...
History shows us that if a way to cheat can be used it will be used eventually. And heaven knows we are seeing several generations of cheaters on steroids being unmasked right before our eyes.
For a long time, there has been speculation that if somebody could just develop a process to separate gold from seawater, then there would be enormous amounts of gold available.
Likewise, in more modern times, there is the idea that if you could crush ore to powder, then bacteria could concentrate just a particular metal, like gold, from the powder in a nutrient solution.
In both cases, these ideas are quickly dismissed, because the assumption is that (whatever) goes in, and “pure gold” comes out. But this is not how mining usually works.
Concentration is not to achieve purity, but just to achieve a higher percentage of the desired metal in the (whatever). Even with ore mining, there are usually several different concentration processes that just produce an incremental increase.
Typically these days, “gold ore” contains only 0.5 parts per million of gold, or a tad more. So if you could concentrate to 50 parts per *million*, you could not only save a vast amount of money, but create concentrated ore of serious value. Even if you still could not see visible gold in the ore.
If such a concentration process was cheap, you could become extremely wealthy.
the identity of the killer was kept secret for more than 50 years, through exhortations to the audience at the end of each performance not to reveal it so as not to spoil the twist in the tale for new audiences
“If such a concentration process was cheap, you could become extremely wealthy.”
Or extremely dead.
I gather a number of those involved in large-size high-quality artificial diamond production are now metabolically challenged.
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