alchemy and economics

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Precious Metals Alchemy and Economics

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The relationship between value, utility, and rarity is explored. How do we apportion value and represent it with money?

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Alchemy and Economics

Precious MetalsAlchemy and

Economics

Page 2: Alchemy and Economics

Value

• Precious Metals have always been a store of value

• Gold• Sliver• Abstraction of Value

Page 3: Alchemy and Economics

Basis of Currency

• Gold Doubloons• Silver Certificates• Fort Knox• Pound Sterling• Bi metal Standard

Page 4: Alchemy and Economics

Gold Standard

• William McKinley ran for president on the basis of the gold standard.

Page 5: Alchemy and Economics

Going off Gold Standard

• 1971• Nixon Shock• Floating Currencies• Exchange Rates• Inflation• Vietnam War

Page 6: Alchemy and Economics

Intrinsic Value in Precious Metals

• Utility?• Gold: incorruptible;

doesn’t rust or oxidize• Philosophical meaning

of value: permanence like the stars.

• Rare

Page 7: Alchemy and Economics

Alchemy

• Get Rich quick• Turn base metals into

Gold• Fore runner to

chemistry

Page 8: Alchemy and Economics

Famous people who were practicing alchemists or influenced

by alchemical texts• Isaac Newton– Hinge point

• Plato• Shakespeare• Leonardo Da Vinci• Rumi• John Milton

Page 9: Alchemy and Economics

Isaac Newton

• Physics– Universal Gravitation– Laws of motion

• Calculus• Optics– Prism: separation of

white light into rainbow spectrum

– Reflecting Telescope

Page 10: Alchemy and Economics

Isaac Newton• As Master of the Mint in

1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton moved the Pound Sterling de facto from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in favor of gold.

Page 11: Alchemy and Economics

Alchemical Processes

• Purification• Reduction• Conversion• Proto - Chemistry

Page 12: Alchemy and Economics

Alchemists to Chemists

• Western alchemy is recognized as a protoscience that contributed to the development of modern chemistry and medicine

• Francis Bacon• Linus Pauling

Page 13: Alchemy and Economics

Rare = Precious = Valuable

• Aluminum• Discovered in 1800s• So rare that the

pyramid on to of the Washington Monument is covered in Aluminum leaf.

• December 1884• Laus Deo

Page 14: Alchemy and Economics

Pyramidion on top of Washington Monument

• Made of Aluminum• Inscriptions• Orientation to Sun• Meaning and

Significance• Obelisk

Page 15: Alchemy and Economics

Real Alchemy

• Invention of Process to extract Aluminum using electricity

• Charles Martin Hall• Lab experiment• Scale up• Need lots of electricity• Enabling technology

Page 16: Alchemy and Economics

Edison and DC

• Direct Current was the first distributed electricity

• New York City had the first electric lights and power distribution

• JP Morgan financed Edison’s electric operations

• Consolidated Edison became General Electric

Page 17: Alchemy and Economics

Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Page 18: Alchemy and Economics

Tesla

Page 19: Alchemy and Economics

Mad Scentist

Page 20: Alchemy and Economics

Tesla and Twain

• Twain spent a lot of time visiting Tesla’s lab in New York City.

• These two men came to be friends—essentially, as mutual fanboys.

• A bromance.

Page 21: Alchemy and Economics

Invention of AC

• Nickolai Tesla• Harness the power of

Niagra Falls• Generators• Electric Motors• Distrbution– Transformers

Page 22: Alchemy and Economics

Creative Destruction

• Competing Systems:– Direct Current– Alternating Current

• War of the Currents• Edison electrocuted

dogs to “prove” the danger of AC

Page 23: Alchemy and Economics

George Westinghouse

• American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry.

• Westinghouse/Edison Rivalry

Page 24: Alchemy and Economics

Electrification of the World

Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse built the first hydro-electric power plant in Niagara Falls and started the electrification of the world. Adam's Power Station (Power House No. 3), the only remains of the old Niagara Falls Power Plant.

Page 25: Alchemy and Economics

Harnessing Nature’s Power

The first use of Niagara Falls Power Company electricity was by the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (later to be renamed Aluminum Company of America), which used an electrolytic process invented by Charles M. Hall. The company was founded in Pittsburgh in 1886 but transferred operations to Niagara Falls during this period because of the prospect of cheap and reliable electrical power.

Page 26: Alchemy and Economics

Charles Martin Hall(December 6, 1863 – December 27, 1914) American inventor, music enthusiast, and chemist. He is best known for his invention in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminum, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron.

Page 27: Alchemy and Economics

U.S. patent #400,666Hall's method of processing the metal ore was to pass an electric current through a non-metallic conductor (molten sodium fluoride compound was used) to separate the very conductive aluminum. In 1889, Charles Martin Hull was awarded U.S. patent #400,666 for his process.

Page 28: Alchemy and Economics

Oberlin College's most prominent benefactor: Aluminum Statue

Page 29: Alchemy and Economics

ALCOAIn 1888, together with financier Alfred E. Hunt, Charles Martin Hall founded the Pittsburgh Reduction Company now know as the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). By 1914, Charles Martin Hall had brought the cost of aluminum down to 18 cents a pound and it was no longer considered a precious metal.

Page 30: Alchemy and Economics

Value of Aluminum

• Over 1000 uses• Value as scrap

Page 31: Alchemy and Economics

Gold from Sea WaterSeawater contains vast quantities of dissolved gold, perhaps as much as $10 trillion (US) worth, though in dilute concentrations. Recent evidence suggests that much of the earths continental gold deposits have biological origins. Certain bacteria are believed to have been involved in the precipitation of gold out of dilute hydrothermal solutions. A possible avenue for commercially viable gold recovery from seawater might involve such a bacterium, or a specifically engineered microbe.

Page 32: Alchemy and Economics

Could we return to Gold Standard?

• Exchange Rates• Credit Rating of

Treasury Debt Erodes• Hyper inflation• Nostalgia for underlying

hard concrete value to money

Page 33: Alchemy and Economics

Bitcoin

• A move in the opposite direction toward transcendent unregulated immaterial notion of value representation.