How to discuss religion with believers?

[Jehanne]

I can't believe that you, a PhD mathematician, is discussing high school physics and chemistry.

Why not? I can also discuss algebra and arithmetic if the discussion calls for it.

One aspect that I was attempting to point out is the fact that air has considerably more mass than many people suspect. I know I was surprised the first time I learned that a cubic meter of air has a mass of about 3 pounds.

Well, then I can't believe that I am discussing high school physics and chemistry.  But, being a former Christian evangelical fundamentalist, I regard my participation on this board as being somewhat a civic duty to my species, and, in particular, some of its unfortunate members.

[polymath257]

Why not? I can also discuss algebra and arithmetic if the discussion calls for it.

One aspect that I was attempting to point out is the fact that air has considerably more mass than many people suspect. I know I was surprised the first time I learned that a cubic meter of air has a mass of about 3 pounds.

Well, then I can't believe that I am discussing high school physics and chemistry.  But, being a former Christian evangelical fundamentalist, I regard my participation on this board as being somewhat a civic duty to my species, and, in particular, some of its unfortunate members.

As a teacher (professor), I very often have discussions at a much lower level than I would if everyone around understood graduate level math and physics.

[Scientia]

@polymath257
Wasn't this in bolden your response to Drich?


Because from the look of it, it seems that "someone" corrected Drich by saying "you need 7 tons of oxygen/nitrogen/argon to obtain one ton of gold" which is equal to say that 1 ton = 7 ton.

Again, if that wasn't you, then I apologize. I assumed it was you from the context (and taking into account how messy the quote function can get).

I *think* that was Drich attempting to correct us. I did mention that it takes 6-7 *molecules* of air to form one atom of gold. But that is correct and is what makes the masses the same.

In any case, no harm, no foul.

My bad. Ye, I saw you had got it right, but then I saw that quote inside a quote and was misled "ah damn, did he convert mol to mass :/?". All good

[Jehanne]

Well, then I can't believe that I am discussing high school physics and chemistry.  But, being a former Christian evangelical fundamentalist, I regard my participation on this board as being somewhat a civic duty to my species, and, in particular, some of its unfortunate members.

As a teacher (professor), I very often have discussions at a much lower level than I would if everyone around understood graduate level math and physics.

As a student, I loved my classes, but was not intelligent enough to pursue a PhD, let alone having a realistic hope of being something more than a flunkie even if I managed to acquire one. And, I hated the prospect of teaching, especially, being a TA and grading stacks of homework at very low pay.

And, so, on multiple fronts, I salute you for your day job and for being here.

[Drich]

I'll post the complete answers after, but this post alone deserves its standalone response.

@Drich

  no.. sorry sport.. here we 'proof our work by providing references and support material we don't pretend to just know otherwise you can be made the fool when someone asks for supporting material or simply provides the material they have that blows you out of the water.

Yes a mol of air is  28.9647 g/mol. 

but let say the atomic weight for a single molecule of air is 30.0000u for simple math sake

as the atomic weight of oxy is 15.9999u

https://www.google.com/search?q=mol+mass...e&ie=UTF-8

atomic weight of an atom of nitrogen is: 14.0067 u

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1AJZ...UZ4towQyRg

( which also leaves room for argon and the other stuff)

but the atomic weight of gold is a little bit heavier.. little bit because we are dealing with atomic weight, but apples to apples it is a hellva lot heavier.

Au=196.9665690 u
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/molec...d_679.html

can you see that three atoms that roughly make up air (remember we cheated and rounded up to 30) is far lighter than just one ATOM of gold. if fact 30 air molecules of air a needed or 90 atoms of the three primary air components are needed to equate the density of just 1 gold atom. That means in mass there is a 90:1 ratio needed of air to just one unit of gold..

Meaning if you want one ton of gold you have to convert 90 tons of oxy nitrogen and Argon.. 

1) You ask for references for something that is basic chemistry. You don't know anything about it? Cool, you can look up any periodic table for this kind of information, just realize that copy-pasting 6 figures atomic weights from wikipedia in here only makes you appear silly. No one uses 6 figures in normal calculations, especially when the number is 15.999996 (which anyone will rationally round up to 16). Look up what precision and accuracy are.

2) You clearly don't know what "mol", "atomic weight" and "molecules" even mean, and this is very evident to me. 90 tons of air are needed to create 1 ton of gold? Congratulations sir, you just destroyed the first fundamental law of chemistry, the principle of mass conservation:

The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system's mass cannot change, so quantity cannot be added nor removed. Hence the quantity of mass is conserved over time.

Just in case it didn’t reach you, 1 ton of gold is equal to 1 ton of air. (Ever heard of the joke “what weighs more, 1 pound of lead or 1 pound of feathers?”).

Also, bad math. Air is roughly made of 20% Oxygen and 80% Nitrogen, but oxygen and nitrogen are present in nature in the form of molecules not atoms, more specifically as O2 and N2. Your savage addition of the atomic weights, 16 + 14, to get 30 uma is downright wrong. Mind me, the number itself is close to the final number, but how you got it is downright wrong (and I tutored enough students to know that you did just that). This is how you calculate it:
Legend:
W = atomic/molecular weight (g/mol)
m = mass (g)
d = density (g/cm3)
T = temperature (°C or K)
P = pressure (atm)
V = volume (L)
n = number of moles (mol)
R = gas constant (atm*L/Kmol)

W(O2) = 32 g/mol
W(N2) = 28 g/mol
Air composition = 20% O2 + 80% N2
W(air) = 0.2*32 + 0.8*28 = 28.8 g/mol
In this example let's consider 1 mole of air for ease. By definition, a mole is

n = m/W

if we want to find out how many grams 1 mole of air is, then 

n = m/W  -->  m = n*W = (1 mol)*(28.8 g/mol) = 28.8 g

So 1 mole of air is 28.8 g. But air is gaseous in standard conditions (T = 25°C = 298 K, P = 1 atm), so we want to express it in terms of volume. From the gas law we'll get the volume:

PV = nRT --> V = nRT/P = (1 mol)*(0.082 atm*L/Kmol)*(298 K)/(1 atm) = 24.4 L

So 1 mole of air is equal to 28.8 g which is equal to 24.4 L.

According to the principle of mass conservation, the mass in a closed system is constant. This means that if our system comprises only 1 mol of air (28.8 g), and our godlike alchemist converted this mass in gold, then the final mass of gold will be the exact same, that is 28.8 g. So now we want to find out what we would get by converting 28.8 g (or 24.4L) of air into gold, either in terms of mass or volume:

W(Au) = 197 g/mol
d(Au) = 19.32 g/cm3

So our equivalence will be

m(air) = m(Au)

28.8 g(air) = 28.8 g(Au)

But 28.8 g of air was also equal to 1 mol air and 24.4L air, so

1 mol(air) = 24.4 L(air) = 28.8 g(air) = 28.8 g(Au)

So now, what is the volume of 28.8 g of gold? And what are the moles of gold?
d = m/V  -->  V = m/d
V(Au) = 28.8 g/19.32 g/cm3 = 1.49 cm3

n = m/W
n(Au) = 28.8 g/197 g/mol = 0.146 mol

So 1 mol of air, which is 24.4L or 28.8 g, would be converted to 28.8 g of gold which corresponds to 0.146 mol or 1.49 cm3 of gold (a small gold nugget).

As you can see, calculating the moles of gold isn’t even necessary for our example. Why did I bother to do it anyways? I did it to show you that what you were talking about was the molar ratio of air:gold, not the mass ratio. 
The air:gold molar ratio is the ratio between the moles of air and the moles of gold:

R = 1 mol(air)/0.146 mol(Au) = 6.84 (even in this case your math was off. 90:1? wtf?)

Which is the number that polymath found. However, he too was incorrect, as what you both were comparing here are the moles, not the masses. What you have to understand is that a mole is just a way to number things: 14 balls of 1 gram are equal to 1 ball of 14 g. A mole represents that "14". This is the example I typically give to my students, which usually is effective:


Just in case it wasn't clear, a.u. stands for arbitrary unit and here it is an analogy to uma. A weighs 14 uma and B weighs 2 uma. The numbers preceding A and B are an analogy to the number of moles: in this case 1 "mole" of A is equal to 7 "moles" of B in terms of "mass" (14 uma both). My usage of 7 wasn't casual either, because 7 is roughly the molar ratio of air:gold. So in your mind visualize A = gold and B = air. Do you get the picture now?

But let's make another example. Let's pretend we want to produce 1 Kg of gold, how much air is needed?

m(Au) = m(air)
1000 g(Au) = 1000 g(air)
We want to find out the volume of air, but to do so we have to pass through the moles. Remembering that W(air) = 28.8 g/mol and that n = m/W

n(air) = 1000 g/28.8 g/mol = 34.72 mols

From the gas law we have
PV = nRT  --> V(air) = nRT/P = (34.72 mol)*(0.082 atm*L/Kmol)*(298 K)/(1 atm) = 848.42 L

Just out of curiosity, let's calculate what were the initial moles of gold:

n(Au) = 1000 g/197 g/mol = 5.076 mol

Let's recalculate the ratio of air:gold

R = 34.72/5.076 = 6.84

Oh what a surprise, the same number we found before. As you can see, the molar ratio is the same and the mass is constant.

What you and polymath were talking about was the molar ratio, not the mass ratio. These mistakes are typical of fresh 1st year students who haven’t hit the books, which is okay if you aren’t a chemist and aren’t interested in the subject. It is completely fine for you to not know the definition of mols just as it is fine for me to not know how an integrated circuit works. However, going around and acting as if you know what you are talking about when you are completely oblivious about the subject is just downright arrogant and stupid.

Now let put your small box mind that could not understand this simple equation but call me stupid inside your house or building at work when you challenge God to do this. and he says sure let us show this monkey man who and what God is despite what others may have to go through.. and turn air into a ton of gold..

Now..
Riddle me this, does the whole of your house contain enough volume of aire to satifify the 90 to 1 ratio of air needed? Meaning if I pull a hard vacuum on your house (30hg)could i displace 90 tons of the atoms needed for your request??? 

What if God kept your house sealed and from implosion. because truly as you missed my point before You have no way of making sure air was being converted into gold otherwise.. I in slight of hand could turn air into gold. The only way you could see or know a atomic change was happening is if you were caught up in said vacuum.. Which would ironically (as your last breath was being pulled from your lungs) be the proof you needed lest the whole 'test' be for nothing.

So quick to flash your flare you missed the whole point completely.

Did you really think that your god’s homeschooling would have magically helped you lecturing me on this? Sir, what you are doing here is gambling and it looks like this time you didn't roll a six, did you? If this is the result of your god's teachings, then you both should go hit the books again. These are the only things that will actually help you:
https://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Chemica...0840048289

Get real.

here's the thing sport...

If all of what you posted is correct... where the F is your gold? I'm breathing plenty of air... so by your standard you should still be able to produce a city of Gold.

Have you considered the reason you can not turn air into gold is because you assume the above is correct and it hinders the process rather than helps?
I know this is what you believe, which gives you the arrogance of a King with out gold. But Again if all you say is correct and everything you assume about alchemy is correct then why not put up and shut me up show me the gold!

Ah, that's right you can't..

This is like you an earth is flat-er shaming me a (If the earth is flat why not this-er) for not giving enough 'shites' about something as trivial as turning air into gold!

My point wasn't I know more about your idea of how this works my point was if you knew how this all worked you would have it done it, because you don't know there are indeed variables you are not smart enough to account for air air to mass conversion. I deal in chemistry so far as my need in the refrigeration systems call for. What I was trying to demonstrate is that a pound of refrigerant in a gaseous state by volume is about 35% of a pound of the same refrigerant in a liquid state, there is always an unknown variable here as pressure and temperature dictates the point of condensation. either way the conversion of a gas to a heavier state requires more volume of gas.

Me telling you there is not a 1:1 ration of air to gas was at the core of my warning. As people often foolishly think we have unlimited resources when it comes to air and water as we all have no way to truly understand it's finite nature. 

My argument or my warning to you was look for the hidden cost if you extrapolate 1 ton of gold that weights 196u per atom and you have a collective of 45 u atomic weight of a molecule of air you are using 4 times more air to generate the same mass, density, weight in gold

Now...
Can you now see where my limitations are..

Yet my title, my position in life does not =/= my education. tell me some more about how smart I am. how I have this hidden latent non liner thinking ability. Again I have been placed and given all that I have and not earned it like someone like you has!

[Drich]

here's where your confusion is in the conversion of mols to atoms. The point of the conversation was to witness God Change air to gold on a atomic level, so rather than convert I used the atomic weight of the atoms themselves. So to make a ton of gold even at a 7:1 ratio (your numbers not mine) you need 7 tons of air, as by your numbers gold is 7 times heavier than air. 

The point is it takes a larger than a 1:1 exchange to make gold from air. you will need way way more air molecules of air to make one u of gold. so if you had a ton of air in your house you are 6 tons short of making one ton of gold using your numbers.

You guys kill me. you make yourself look stupid for the sake of trying to show me up on a math issue when you miss the whole point of the problem, and screw up your own solution.

No, this is wrong. it is the *mass* that is important here, not the atoms. You may one atom of gold for about 7 molecules of air. But the mass of the two is the same. All that is required is to rearrange the protons and neutrons and convert a few protons to neutrons. The number of electrons will be correct.

---

Which is the number that polymath found. However, he too was incorrect, as what you both were comparing here are the moles, not the masses. What you have to understand is that a mole is just a way to number things: 14 balls of 1 gram are equal to 1 ball of 14 g. A mole represents that "14". This is the example I typically give to my students, which usually is effective:

Actually, if you look at my calculation, I used the masses, not the number of moles. The point is that I calculated the mass of a cubic meter of air and used that to determine the mass of the air in a house (approximately). I never actually used the 6.84 number.

if the mass is the same why is the weight different? because one has more atomic weight that the other albeit on atomic level consisting of no more than atomic particles, even if by density.. so where do those extra particles come from, how can air match the density of Gold even on the atomic level? more air. 

If it takes 200 if it takes subatomic particles to make one gold atom, and a whole molecule of air containing 3 atoms has a total number of say 50 particles then 4 molecules of air containing 12 atoms will be needed to create one atom of Gold.

My point is gold requires more than a 1:1 exchange if it were to be converted to gold. 

For example we can turn lead (or bismuth) into gold albeit in near microscopic quantities. how by putting the core element into an accelerator and shearing off neutrons, 

 Along with the four protons, the collision-induced reactions had removed anywhere from six to 15 neutrons, producing a range of gold isotopes from gold 190 (79 protons and 111 neutrons) to gold 199 (79 protons, 120 neutrons), the researchers reported in the March 1981 issue of Physical Review C.

I know you guys want to talk in mols of Gas but the reason I have been speaking of atoms is because the only changes we have ever made have been on this level. I know it is easier for you to speak and assume conversions rates in moles but again this is not the topic. the 'proof of god being discussed is to witness God changing air into gold on a atomic level.

We have done this! But when we did we had to take a heavier than gold element and knock mass off the core material to reduce it down to a range of 190u to 199u where as 196u is considered pure gold. To obtain this same atomic mass from a starting point of air the heaviest/most easily neutron accepting element would have to be isolated and it be forced to take on more mass (from 15 or 16 u) to gain 184u in atomic mass which would demand far more of the core material in volume than would yield gold.

Look at the article below when we successfully  changed bismuth to gold a large core of bismuth was used and even so we only got atoms of gold in return.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-lead-can-be-turned-into-gold/

You can not tell me if we used air instead of the heavier than gold element bismuth, it would be a 1:1 exchange air to gold. 

[Scientia]

TL;DR you are wrong. More specifically, your understanding of mass, density and mole are wrong. To me it's perfectly clear what you didn't understand and so we can correct this. But let's go with order

@Drich

here's the thing sport...

If all of what you posted is correct... where the F is your gold? I'm breathing plenty of air... so by your standard you should still be able to produce a city of Gold.

Have you considered the reason you can not turn air into gold is because you assume the above is correct and it hinders the process rather than helps?
I know this is what you believe, which gives you the arrogance of a King with out gold. But Again if all you say is correct and everything you assume about alchemy is correct then why not put up and shut me up show me the gold!

Ah, that's right you can't..

Where the F is my gold? That's for me to ask, as I was the first to ask your god to spawn gold. Did you already forget from where all  this discussion originated? The act of turning air to gold was the evidence I wanted to believe in God. Then you started trampling on chemistry, mocking me on how I didn’t understand equations when it was YOU who didn’t understand a thing, getting disconnected from your original thoughts.

The act of turning air into gold would indeed be a majestic feat worthy of a being called god because you would need to manually, surgically, rearrange electrons, protons and neutrons and absorb or redirect any energy deriving from this rearrangement. Basically you’d need something like subatomic tweezers, perfect control and eyes with resolutions of an electron coupled with an operational speed equating the speed of light OR some particularly tailored electromagnetic waves able to induce such changes OR magic powers that transcend this physical reality. No one can perform this feat right now, but we have enough technology to ascertain it happening. This is WHY I asked to be shown this specific feat.

When you say “Ah, that’s right, you can’t” or “if you knew how this all worked you would have done it” it’s like you were trying to prove that I am not god. The thing is, I never claimed to be god. That was what I wanted out of God. You are asking out of me the same evidence that I’m asking out of god. Do you hold me in this high regard?
 

This is like you an earth is flat-er shaming me a (If the earth is flat why not this-er) for not giving enough 'shites' about something as trivial as turning air into gold!

My point wasn't I know more about your idea of how this works my point was if you knew how this all worked you would have it done it, because you don't know there are indeed variables you are not smart enough to account for air air to mass conversion. I deal in chemistry so far as my need in the refrigeration systems call for. What I was trying to demonstrate is that a pound of refrigerant in a gaseous state by volume is about 35% of a pound of the same refrigerant in a liquid state, there is always an unknown variable here as pressure and temperature dictates the point of condensation. either way the conversion of a gas to a heavier state requires more volume of gas.

Me telling you there is not a 1:1 ration of air to gas was at the core of my warning. As people often foolishly think we have unlimited resources when it comes to air and water as we all have no way to truly understand it's finite nature. Me telling you there is not a 1:1 ratio of air to gas was at the core of my warning

And again, bad science. When you say the ratio is not 1:1 you are saying NOTHING, because you are not stating in regards to WHAT. Is that a volume ratio? A mass ratio? A molar ratio? Do you realize that these 3 things are different?

If I have 1 m3 of lead and 1 m3 of aluminium then:
1 m3 of lead has the same volume of 1 m3 of aluminium, so their volume ratio is 1:1
1 m3 of lead has a mass which is 4.2 times that of 1 m3 of aluminium, so their mass ratio is 4.2:1
1 m3 of lead contains 54.78 mols, 1 m3 of aluminium contains 207.7 mols, so their molar ratio is 1:3.8

If you don’t say in regards to WHAT, then your “ratio” holds no meaning.

Also, 1 pound of your gaseous refrigerant is equal to 1 pound of your liquid refrigerant. Here you are just confusing mass, volume, density and mole.

My argument or my warning to you was look for the hidden cost if you extrapolate 1 ton of gold that weights 196u per atom and you have a collective of 45 u atomic weight of a molecule of air you are using 4 times more air to generate the same mass, density, weight in gold

Your argument is wrong because your idea of mass or “quantity” in general is wrong. In a closed system, mass is constant and unchanging. If you have a box with 10 balls that weigh 1 Kg each, glued together to form one big agglomerate of balls weighing 10 Kg, and you rearrange them by making 5 sets of 2 balls each, or 10 sets of 1 ball each, the final mass will always be the same. You are just rearranging them.

This is the concept that is eluding you. When I ask god to transmute air to gold, I am asking him to rearrange balls at a subatomic level. Instead of one set of 10 balls, I want 10 sets of 1 ball. The mass is always the same. What confuses you are the concepts of density and mole.

Also, why do you keep warning and insisting on the “trade off”? Are you trying to attach some kind of morale to it like “you have to give up a large volume of air to get a small volume of gold”? Because if that’s the case, I personally don’t care. This is a demonstration. I’m not asking him to convert all air to gold, I want him to convert a finite volume of air, and 24.4 L (1 mol) for me is enough.

What you are doing here is just deflecting. You already said before that this is my version of god that doesn't exist, but you decided to arrogantly entangle yourself anyways in this hypothetic scenario where god is like that, by over-complicating a simple example I had made out of the tip of my brain and turning it into a tragedy. A tragedy where math and physics got murdered several times.

But you know, I get paid to simplify unnecessarily complicated things, it is part of my job and so I'm used to it. You really want to cling to such insignificant details? Fine, then I’ll redesign the experiment just for you: 
I want your god to convert 22.56 g of iridium (= 1 cm3 = 0.1174 moles) to 22.56 g of gold (= 1.99 cm3 = 0.1145 moles). 

This way I am not depriving you of any precious air and you can keep breathing normally. Moreover the change in volume is insignificant, so you are not creating any dangerous vacuum or an explosion, while the disappearance of this small shitlet of iridium won’t change your life. 

Are you happy with this setup? Are you satisfied now that the transmutation is moral and safe? No, you aren't, because your next response will be "Ah, but this is your version of God which doesn't exist, so it doesn't matter anyways". I saw it coming from a mile, but your arrogance coupled with your bad math and attempt to lecture me triggered me.

if the mass is the same why is the weight different? because one has more atomic weight that the other albeit on atomic level consisting of no more than atomic particles, even if by density.. so where do those extra particles come from, how can air match the density of Gold even on the atomic level? more air. 

If it takes 200 if it takes subatomic particles to make one gold atom, and a whole molecule of air containing 3 atoms has a total number of say 50 particles then 4 molecules of air containing 12 atoms will be needed to create one atom of Gold.

My point is gold requires more than a 1:1 exchange if it were to be converted to gold. 

For example we can turn lead (or bismuth) into gold albeit in near microscopic quantities. how by putting the core element into an accelerator and shearing off neutrons,

OH, I finally identified the source of your misunderstanding. 

The mass of a single unit of a substance is the sum of its protons, neutrons and electrons (so its atomic weight).

But it's difficult to discuss the properties of a single atom, we can't really handle a single atom. At best we can handle a bunch of atoms. Cool, then let's decide a standard to discuss this bunch of atoms. Let's call it mole and let's state that a mole of a substance is equal to 602,300,000,000,000,000,000,000 units of that substance. But saying that a mole is equal to 602 thousands of billions of billions of units is unpractical, so let's shorten it to 6.023*10^23. But even this number is a hassle to drag around, let's just call it NA (Avogadro's number).

So from now on, let's not compare single atoms between each other. Instead, let's compare a finite number of these atoms, an amount that we can practically handle. Now, this bunch of atoms has a mass and depending on the element, the protons, neutrons and electrons are arranged differently from atom to atom. Some have more of these particles and so they weigh more, some have less and so they weigh less... but some have almost identical mass! Whatever, they'll weigh similarly.

Up to this point, I assume it's all clear. Now we get at the nasty part: how much volume do these single units occupy? The answer is: it depends how they are arranged. That's right. You would be inclined to think that an element with more protons/neutrons/electrons has a higher density, right? That's the intuitive answer. The problem is, it doesn't work like that. This is the trend of density with the atomic weight:
https://www.ptable.com/#Property/Density/STP
Can you see how "weird" the trend is? For example, an atom of iridium has less protons/neutrons/electrons than 1 atom of gold, yet it is more dense. Why? The reason behind this is electro-magnetic in nature. Having more particles doesn't always equate to having higher density, because some particles, despite being less in number, may actually be held tightly closer because of how they are arranged. Can you see the recurring theme here? Arrangement, arranged?


Please, do ask questions if this isn't clear. I want to make sure you understand this part. You aren't stupid or limited, you just learnt something wrong. If you assimilate this, everything else will suddenly come flowing through you. You know, the first version of the post I had written was much harsher and caustic because you had pissed me off, but now that I have identified where the misunderstanding was, I kind of understood what misled you all this time.

PS: I may reply tomorrow to other queries. Till then, go ahead
EDIT: I had forgotten one piece of your post:

For example we can turn lead (or bismuth) into gold albeit in near microscopic quantities. how by putting the core element into an accelerator and shearing off neutrons, 
Quote:
 Along with the four protons, the collision-induced reactions had removed anywhere from six to 15 neutrons, producing a range of gold isotopes from gold 190 (79 protons and 111 neutrons) to gold 199 (79 protons, 120 neutrons), the researchers reported in the March 1981 issue of Physical Review C.


I know you guys want to talk in mols of Gas but the reason I have been speaking of atoms is because the only changes we have ever made have been on this level. I know it is easier for you to speak and assume conversions rates in moles but again this is not the topic. the 'proof of god being discussed is to witness God changing air into gold on a atomic level.

We have done this! But when we did we had to take a heavier than gold element and knock mass off the core material to reduce it down to a range of 190u to 199u where as 196u is considered pure gold. To obtain this same atomic mass from a starting point of air the heaviest/most easily neutron accepting element would have to be isolated and it be forced to take on more mass (from 15 or 16 u) to gain 184u in atomic mass which would demand far more of the core material in volume than would yield gold.

Look at the article below when we successfully  changed bismuth to gold a large core of bismuth was used and even so we only got atoms of gold in return.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...into-gold/

You can not tell me if we used air instead of the heavier than gold element bismuth, it would be a 1:1 exchange air to gold. 

If you understood what I said above, then all what followed should unfold naturally. But just to address your point about nuclear fission:
I had already said in one of my very first replies that we can already do this to some extent. Want me to remind you? Here it is: https://atheistforums.org/thread-57748-p...pid1875841 

I'm asking to see something that no one can currently do but that isn't physically impossible. Basically play by his own rules. If he created everything, if he was the source of the big bang, then it shouldn't be so difficult to replicate a small scale big bang experiment. It shouldn't be so fantasy to transform matter into energy and viceversa. I mean, we can already do that to a certain extent, roughly, but we don't have that much precision.

We can already mess with atoms but, as I specified in my post, we can do that only to a certain "simple" extent and with limited precision. What I'm asking out of God is something that man can't currently do. What would be the point of asking him to do something we already can? That wouldn't prove that he's superior, would it?

[Drich]

TL;DR you are wrong. More specifically, your understanding of mass, density and mole are wrong. To me it's perfectly clear what you didn't understand and so we can correct this. But let's go with order

Look and again I am not disputing I have little knowledge of terminology. this should accurately demonstrate the 4th grade education I was speaking of. Again this shows off my personal limitations. I can't label your integers to create an equation you would recognise.

Where the F is my gold? That's for me to ask, as I was the first to ask your god to spawn gold. 

But again that's the thing is it not? If your understand of this process was complete you could at least point to air being converted at your perscribed ratios to gold, but you can not even do that. So to me everything you say on thei subject is the way you think it should go.. how things should work, how matter is displaced and converted.. but again if this where not a demonstration of pure faith on your part you could show me where gold has been created even on a atomic level.

Did you already forget from where all  this discussion originated?

did you? because I asked you if God were to do this before your very eyes could you even tell the difference between the actual manufacturing of gold and slight of hand? would you be able to account for all the unknowns/unknowables currently keeping us from turning air into gold... meaning if all you know of this process has not created one atom of Gold then how would you know God or anyone was actually doing it? Again I'm asking you to account for the current unknowns not the BS you keep trying to sell. Because you can Not point to one example of air being turned into Gold everything you believe about the process yes meaning all the bull shite you were trying to use to shame me into silence is just you flexing your faith in what you think let me repeat that.. WHAT YOU THINK Would go down when Air turned into Gold. No Gold, no position or authority on telling me shite about your faith in how other things works proven or not in science. You sir are well out of your depth here and are speaking on faith, which I have no problem with, but you should be approaching me with faith and evidence not some puffed up sense of superiority on a speculative endeavor that has never been done! More people have stood before Jesus/God then have seen man make gold in any form or anything other than gold! and it is with that 'proof/blind faith' you try and obliterate me? bruh, please.

The act of turning air into gold would indeed be a majestic feat worthy of a being called god because you would need to manually, surgically, rearrange electrons, protons and neutrons and absorb or redirect any energy deriving from this rearrangement. Basically you’d need something like subatomic tweezers, perfect control and eyes with resolutions of an electron coupled with an operational speed equating the speed of light OR some particularly tailored electromagnetic waves able to induce such changes OR magic powers that transcend this physical reality. No one can perform this feat right now, but we have enough technology to ascertain it happening. This is WHY I asked to be shown this specific feat.

but again what prevents you for falling for slight of hand, as I can currently produce gold in the form of a coin out of thin air myself. or were you so busy trying to blow me up that you forgot this was the whole basis of my rebuttal?

When you say “Ah, that’s right, you can’t” or “if you knew how this all worked you would have done it” it’s like you were trying to prove that I am not god. The thing is, I never claimed to be god. That was what I wanted out of God. You are asking out of me the same evidence that I’m asking out of god. Do you hold me in this high regard?

what I am prooving is if you do not know the process or the exchange rates you are not in an authoritiv position to correct me or anyone else who speculates on how it is done. that you look as much as a fool correcting me on how to pick up thor's hammer as me telling you how I would do it. Can you get you head around my objection yet? or are you going to break out a few more foolish formulas?
 

And again, bad science. When you say the ratio is not 1:1 you are saying NOTHING, because you are not stating in regards to WHAT. Is that a volume ratio? A mass ratio? A molar ratio? Do you realize that these 3 things are different?

straw man arguement. I gave the exchange rate as being atmic particles. Again the arguement was to witness an actual atomic change.. There fore the rate of conversion is greater than one part/molcule of air to one atom of gold

If I have 1 m3 of lead and 1 m3 of aluminium then:
1 m3 of lead has the same volume of 1 m3 of aluminium, so their volume ratio is 1:1
1 m3 of lead has a mass which is 4.2 times that of 1 m3 of aluminium, so their mass ratio is 4.2:1
1 m3 of lead contains 54.78 mols, 1 m3 of aluminium contains 207.7 mols, so their molar ratio is 1:3.8

If you don’t say in regards to WHAT, then your “ratio” holds no meaning.

Also, 1 pound of your gaseous refrigerant is equal to 1 pound of your liquid refrigerant. Here you are just confusing mass, volume, density and mole.

why are we speaking of anthing larger than an atom? are you unfamilair with atomic weight? are you unfamilair of how elements change? are you unfamilir with how all elements are made up of the singilar material but in different densities?

Then why do you keep on trying to over complicate the discussion with cross conversions? are you trying to put this subject on the top shelf so I can't reach it? if no understand I get atoms well enough to have an elementary discussion, and if with all of your different cross conversions can't have an elementary discussion... well It means you are not what/who you think you are. Didn't einstein himself say: " be as simple as possible where ever you can?" What is more simple than a straight one to one/no conversion needed single atomic discussion concerning 1 atom instead 26 to the 35power atoms?

Your argument is wrong because your idea of mass or “quantity” in general is wrong. In a closed system, mass is constant and unchanging. If you have a box with 10 balls that weigh 1 Kg each, glued together to form one big agglomerate of balls weighing 10 Kg, and you rearrange them by making 5 sets of 2 balls each, or 10 sets of 1 ball each, the final mass will always be the same. You are just rearranging them.

here's the thing dumbass.. We/Man have been able to turn one element into Gold in a closed system/helium collider since 1980. and there is not a 1:1 exchange ration.

This is the concept that is eluding you. When I ask god to transmute air to gold, I am asking him to rearrange balls at a subatomic level. Instead of one set of 10 balls, I want 10 sets of 1 ball. The mass is always the same. What confuses you are the concepts of density and mole.

but again if you had a idk a real life example LIKE I F_ING DO you would know better. but again we are stuck in your little mind on how things should work in a perfect version of your cosmos, which seems to be shadow box built on this cosmos. but with stern absolutus only you are privy to.

Also, why do you keep warning and insisting on the “trade off”? Are you trying to attach some kind of morale to it like “you have to give up a large volume of air to get a small volume of gold”? Because if that’s the case, I personally don’t care. This is a demonstration. I’m not asking him to convert all air to gold, I want him to convert a finite volume of air, and 24.4 L (1 mol) for me is enough.

This was the god thing telling me there is never a 1:1 trade. everything has a cost when going from this to that. atoms or in this case subatomic particals must be moved at the expense of ???? If we knew the ???? this would not be a mirical.

What you are doing here is just deflecting. You already said before that this is my version of god that doesn't exist, but you decided to arrogantly entangle yourself anyways in this hypothetic scenario where god is like that, by over-complicating a simple example I had made out of the tip of my brain and turning it into a tragedy. A tragedy where math and physics got murdered several times.

I have no idea what your on about here. all I've done is demonstrate my personal liitations in the educaction/science side of things, and when you come around you will also see I am right about the trade off as well. You'll see shortly..

But you know, I get paid to simplify unnecessarily complicated things, it is part of my job and so I'm used to it. You really want to cling to such insignificant details? Fine, then I’ll redesign the experiment just for you: 
I want your god to convert 22.56 g of iridium (= 1 cm3 = 0.1174 moles) to 22.56 g of gold (= 1.99 cm3 = 0.1145 moles). 

but again why put god in such a little box? what if the atomic yield of iridium was such that it would allow 22.56 grams of the base element to be converted to 50 grams of gold?

This way I am not depriving you of any precious air and you can keep breathing normally. Moreover the change in volume is insignificant, so you are not creating any dangerous vacuum or an explosion, while the disappearance of this small shitlet of iridium won’t change your life. 

it was neve about the air sport it was always about you not accounting for the unknowns when asking god for something. Again in this situation how or what measures do you have in place to ensure you not being deceived by slight of hand? I could in fact take a small sphere or cube or even coin size disc and produce an equal size or portion of gold. by simple slight of hand. So then If i do this for you would you worship me as God?

Again like with the air if you do not know the trade if you do not know the cost of what you ask for then how will you know what you have is that which you asked?

Are you happy with this setup? Are you satisfied now that the transmutation is moral and safe? No, you aren't, because your next response will be "Ah, but this is your version of God which doesn't exist, so it doesn't matter anyways". I saw it coming from a mile, but your arrogance coupled with your bad math and attempt to lecture me triggered me.

Again no idea what you are on about. I think you like so many others confuse the God of the bible with the god of morality... God via Christ is not concerned with your morality.

The mass of a single unit of a substance is the sum of its protons, neutrons and electrons (so its atomic weight).

But it's difficult to discuss the properties of a single atom, we can't really handle a single atom.

At best we can handle a bunch of atoms. Cool, then let's decide a standard to discuss this bunch of atoms. Let's call it mole and let's state that a mole of a substance is equal to 602,300,000,000,000,000,000,000 units of that substance. But saying that a mole is equal to 602 thousands of billions of billions of units is unpractical, so let's shorten it to 6.023*10^23. But even this number is a hassle to drag around, let's just call it NA (Avogadro's number).

Now, this bunch of atoms has a mass and depending on the element, the protons, neutrons and electrons are arranged differently from atom to atom. Some have more of these particles and so they weigh more, some have less and so they weigh less... but some have almost identical mass! Whatever, they'll weigh similarly.

Up to this point, I assume it's all clear. Now we get at the nasty part: how much volume do these single units occupy? The answer is: it depends how they are arranged. That's right. You would be inclined to think that an element with more protons/neutrons/electrons has a higher density, right? That's the intuitive answer. The problem is, it doesn't work like that. This is the trend of density with the atomic weight:
https://www.ptable.com/#Property/Density/STP
Can you see how "weird" the trend is? For example, an atom of iridium has less protons/neutrons/electrons than 1 atom of gold, yet it is more dense. Why? The reason behind this is electro-magnetic in nature. Having more particles doesn't always equate to having higher density, because some particles, despite being less in number, may actually be held tightly closer because of how they are arranged. Can you see the recurring theme here? Arrangement, arranged?


Please, do ask questions if this isn't clear. I want to make sure you understand this part. You aren't stupid or limited, you just learnt something wrong. If you assimilate this, everything else will suddenly come flowing through you. You know, the first version of the post I had written was much harsher and caustic because you had pissed me off, but now that I have identified where the misunderstanding was, I kind of understood what misled you all this time.

PS: I may reply tomorrow to other queries. Till then, go ahead

again the reason we are discussing individual atoms is because it is on the atomic level that we/man have produced gold, not in grams or mols or anything else you have tried to use in your theoretical conversion they had to count atoms.. not only that they had to extend their definition of gold to include anything with a atomic weight of 190 to 200 which again the gold standard being 196. The way they did this was the took a far more dense material in a much larger quantity (several grams) and bombarded it with helium atoms in a closed circuit super collider.. when the helium smashed into the bismuth it was obliterated. other times when the atomswhere slightly off center the bismuth was cut in to 1/3s or lost 1/2 of it mass and made something else. but when the helium just winged the bismuth and only remove 4 to 6 neutrons guess what. there was gold made, but it was not the 1:1 ratio your predictions made. it was not even a 1:90, out of several grams.. The gold that was made was in the 10's not 10's of thousands, but like 20 or 30 individual atoms of gold were made if again you count the atomic weight of anything with the atomic weight of 190 to 200 gold. which is a crazy exchange rate.

Again what I shown here is my personal intelectual limitations. I don't know your rule I don't know your terminology, but before I looked up anything I was shown inorder for gold to be made atoms had to be bulked up and shaved down, and I knew both processes would be very very messy and a had to happen in a very unique way otherwise gold would be common as dirt.

So after you second "you don't know what you are talking about" I looked up lead into gold, and up poped this one time in 1980 where gold was made. I cross referenced this and it is a legit story. so like big fish I let you spool out as much 'line' as you needed to hang yourself. let you go on and on flurishing how smart you think you are. explaining to all of us that proper understanding of the names of thing you were using is what one needs to be smart. then once I knew the hook was deep, deep in that proud belly i set the hook.

You wanted to talk theory and how things would work in your closed loop world.

I simply stuck to my guns and explained how this would not be the 1:1 gold gathering event you thought it to be. You tried to red herring this whole thing and top shelf the conversation by using all manner of things you knew a 4th grade educated man could just know nothing about. Then I started reeling you in sprinkling in some real world apps, then you countered with oh, well you are using the wrong standard to measure out base material to gold and went on and on like a good teacher instructing his new project to the dark side of alchemy (joke douche I know it is not alchemy), then I got you up to the boat and smash! there go those brains all over my big ass boat and here comes the gaff and in you go to the cooler! when i show all your speculation was indeed faith based nonsense your tutelage in showing me atomic change was far too small of a measure to observe your process. I did this by referring back to the second day's research that showed all your huff and puff was pomp and fluff. because we have done what you are suggesting only God can do. and what's yet? it is a train wreck. meaning out of grams of the base material atoms of gold were made.

Meaning everything you said and told me to do how to think your observations your conclusions based in your faith in your knowledge of science and how all of this chemistry would work... was wrong. all of it. miss placed faith. I would say a mustard seed is about the size of a period. look at all you have written based on what you thought you knew... much larger than a mustard seed huh? All that belief and faith in your understanding of science.. Much like your version of God you put 100% faith in that and oh how ironically real science represented by a man of faith/belief showed you to be beyond wrong in everything you said in the last 3 days.

You called out in your faith and got an answer and with al vim and vigor defended it as if it were truth. (I even hinted at this direction I was going)
And
I call out on My faith and my God to give me direction, and like wise was given and answer, but the difference between you and me, much like with our dealings with God... I checked for proof where I could, and like with God found it, turns out my call on god for direction was 100% right and I proved it via the simple google search you poo pooed on.


All of that aside do you see now where my abilities end where my knowledge and education stops and where God himself pics me up and carries me over the finish line?

The same thing in business. I have two international publicly traded companies competing with me in this area, 3 years ago they dropped out of the market I specifically am in and simply refer any of my type of work directly to me, because the lord had me dominate the sub market I'm in it was too costly for the international companies to keep train and find the speciality work I and my people do.

[Scientia]

@Drich 
I will try one last time, but I get the feeling that you are straight out ignoring me. You aren't even trying to understand the simple math I laid down for you, despite my best efforts. I used the best analogies I had up my sleeve to make you understand a concept, but you just seem to have skipped it alltogether. You want to get down the hard path? Very well then:

1 atom of hydrogen contains: 1 proton, 1 electron 

Deuterium is an isotope(a variant) of hydrogen which contains: 1 proton, 1 neutron, 1 electron

1 atom of helium contains: 2 protons, 2 neutrons, 2 electrons

1 molecule of deuterium, D2, contains: 2 protons, 2 neutrons, 2 electrons.

1 atom of helium and 1 molecule of deuterium contain the same identical particles in the same amounts. Are they the same? No, they are not. They have the same mass but different density, different chemical properties, they are just different. Where does this difference originate from? From how they are arranged.

- Deuterium has 2 nuclei containing 1 proton and 1 neutron each with 2 electron orbiting around them, like this:


- Helium has 1 nucleus containing 2 protons and 2 neutrons with 2 electron orbiting around it, like this:


Do you know how you can pass from Helium to deuterium? By giving it energy. Do you know how you can fuse two nuclei of helium to form 1 nucleus of Berillium (that, for the record, has twice the number of protons/neutrons of helium)? By giving it energy. You kept repeating that I didn't know the process, well here you are, this is how it works. You give things energy, and they change. This is how nuclear fission and fusion work.

Now, if you actually paid attention to my posts, you'd find these words spelled out in more general terms, because my intent was to pass you a simpler and more general idea, not nuclear physics. You don't remember? Here's a few of my old posts:

Basically play by his own rules. If he created everything, if he was the source of the big bang, then it shouldn't be so difficult to replicate a small scale big bang experiment. It shouldn't be so fantasy to transform matter into energy and viceversa. I mean, we can already do that to a certain extent, roughly, but we don't have that much precision. If he can show me that he can manipulate matter at will, manually pick electrons and protons and displace them between atoms, basically if he can show me that he's a "reality surgeon", that he's able to create other realities and also destroy them, then I will acknowledge that he's god. If he can show me that he can transform air into organic matter, make it live and die in front of me, and turn it into a stone, I'll believe he's god. If he can show me that he cuts his own arm or takes out his own heart, lets me touch it and feel it pumping, and then place everything back in his body, I'll believe him. Or well, if anything, I'll at least acknowledge the existence of such a powerful being that I would consider God. It's the same as asking your fellow scientist to replicate the results of his research. Also, he supposedly did something similar already with one of his disciples through the stigmata of Christ but I wasn't there at the time. Can't he do it once more for me?

2) A mol of air is about 25L at room temperature and corresponds to circa 29g. Taking out of the picture energy release from the new bonding/unbonding, 25L of air will produce circa 29g of gold. For the record, 25L is about 1/3 of your volume. If God locally created a vacuum to remove those 25L, the nearby air would instantly be pulled back in to re-equilibrate the system. 10 square miles of air? You'd create a city of gold. You don't even know what you are talking about. Secondly, he can perform this trick in our institute, where we have the machines to reveal the emissions of electromagnetic waves or to inspect a material crystalline nature. If you want I can lay down a precise plan on how to test mr God powers, but that wouldn't satisfy you either because we have to look for God on "his terms". 

Do you know why I asked for this specific example? To play with matter at will? Because this is the ability I would expect from someone who claims to have created everything. If he indeed created everything and was all powerful and almighty, then I'd expect him to:
1) Be able to play with energy at will and arrange subatomic particles at will. Otherwise, why are we "created" the way we are? Why does everything follow a certain order, certain constant laws? Thermodynamically, entropy (the degree of disorder) is continuously increasing. The world is naturally getting more and more chaotic on its own. To be able to create and maintain such local order, you would expect this creator to be somewhat in a position of power to be able to decide these things.
2) If he can play with energy at will and he has so much energy to create countless galaxies, then performing a small scale fusion experiment in a lab by giving energy to sub-atomic particles out of nowhere and absorbing any energy released from the fusion should be a joke. If he wanted to go the hard way, he could even trigger a nuclear fusion and let it run wild inside a properly prepared reactor and a team of experts could stay there and monitor, register and contain the energy released from such an action and study it. 

I had provided you a banal example to pass you an idea, such as that of turning air to gold. I tried to simplify the example to make you understand it more easily. I took out the energy transfer/release because I didn't want to complicate the thing further and being called out on it. And what did you do? You clinged to every possible detail of this experiment, over-complicated everything on your own, started talking about things you didn't know, convinced yourself of being right and of the fact you were lecturing me and then you locked me out of your mind. So here you are, I gave you the full version, are you satisfied now?. If your god can't replicate even a small % of what he claims, then he's a poser, a con, a joker, phony. If he's forced to obey the same laws he created and is restricted by them as much as we are, then he's just a malfunctioning, imperfect, broken god.

If not even this can reach you, then you are lost.

[polymath257]

again the reason we are discussing individual atoms is because it is on the atomic level that we/man have produced gold, not in grams or mols or anything else you have tried to use in your theoretical conversion they had to count atoms.. not only that they had to extend their definition of gold to include anything with a atomic weight of 190 to 200 which again the gold standard being 196.  The way they did this was the took a far more dense material in a much larger quantity (several grams) and bombarded it with helium atoms in a closed circuit super collider.. when the helium smashed into the bismuth it was obliterated. other times when the atomswhere slightly off center the bismuth was cut in to 1/3s or lost 1/2 of it mass and made something else. but when the helium just winged the bismuth and only remove 4 to 6 neutrons guess what. there was gold made, but it was not the 1:1 ratio your predictions made. it was not even a 1:90, out of several grams.. The gold that was made was in the 10's not 10's of thousands, but like 20 or 30 individual atoms of gold were made if again you count the atomic weight of anything with the atomic weight of 190 to 200 gold. which is a crazy exchange rate.

OK, but that is only because of our inability to aim correctly. In the reactions that worked, it was one atom of bismuth that gave rise to one atom of gold when hit by a helium nucleus. There were some protons and neutrons left over.

I simply stuck to my guns and explained how this would not be the 1:1 gold gathering event you thought it to be. You tried to red herring this whole thing and top shelf the conversation by using all manner of things you knew a 4th grade educated man could just know nothing about. Then I started reeling you in sprinkling in some real world apps, then you countered with oh, well you are using the wrong standard to measure out base material to gold and went on and on like a good teacher instructing his new project to the dark side of alchemy (joke douche I know it is not alchemy), then I got you up to the boat and smash! there go those brains all over my big ass boat and here comes the gaff and in you go to the cooler! when i show all your speculation was indeed faith based nonsense your tutelage in showing me atomic change was far too small of a measure to observe your process. I did this by referring back to the second day's research that showed all your huff and puff was pomp and fluff. because we have done what you are suggesting only God can do.  and what's yet? it is a train wreck. meaning out of grams of the base material atoms of gold were made.

OK, so let's make this easy. Air is made from a mixture of primarily molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. Both molecules have two atoms of the respective type: a molecule of nitrogen as two atoms of nitrogen and a molecule of oxygen has two atoms of oxygen. Air also has molecules of carbon dioxide (two atoms of oxygen and one of carbon) and water (two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen), but these are in much smaller amounts.

An atom of nitrogen has 7 protons, 7 neutrons, and 7 electrons. An atom of oxygen has 8 protons, 8 neutrons, and 8 electrons. So, an atom of nitrogen has an atomic mass of 14 amu and an atom of oxygen has an atomic mass of 16 amu (the mass of the electrons is very small)--the protons and neutrons each have a mass of about 1 amu).

This means that a molecule of nitrogen has a total of 14 protons, 14 neutrons, and 14 electrons with a total mass of 28 amu. Notice that the mass and the total number of protons and neutrons is the same. Similarly, an oxygen molecule has 16 protons, 16 neutrons, and 16 electrons with a combined mass of 32 amu. because of the relative amounts of nitrogen and oxygen in the air, the average mass of a molecule in the air is 29 amu, which corresponds to an average of 29 protons or neutrons per molecule.

A standard atom of gold (there are several different isotopes) has 79 protons and 118 neutrons, for a combined atomic mass of 197.

No, now, how would you make an atom of gold? Well, the first thing to notice is that protons and neutrons convert between themselves fairly easily in nuclear reactions and the electrons are mostly irrelevant.


So, we have to put 197 nucleons (protons or neutrons) together where each molecule of air supplies 29 nucleons. That means that we need about 197/29=6.8 molecules of air for each atom of gold.

But, and this is crucial, those 6.8 molecules of air have the same mass as that one molecule of gold. So, while the 6.8 molecules of air form one atom of gold (a 6.8:1 ratio), the *masses* are the same. It takes the same mass of air molecules to make a certain mass of gold molecules.

So, to make 1 ton of gold would require 1 ton of air. The masses will be the same.

But, air and gold have different densities, which means that a ton of air will have a much larger volume than a ton of gold, even though the masses are the same. For gold, that ton would have a volume of about 50 liters. For air, that same ton would have a volume of about 770,000 liters.

Again, the masses are the same, mainly because they have the same number of nucleons. But the volumes are very different because the density of air is much smaller than that of gold.