Photo by: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Professor Kasprzak pointed at his work table and said, “It took years, but I finally understood the secret of alchemy.” He gestured at a model ship. It was solid gold. “In seconds everything: the wooden hull, the canvas sails, all turned to gold.”
Reporter Janice Waller looked on in amazement. “Incredible!”
“The trick is a column of water must reside beneath the object. I transformed this model on a lake two-hundred feet deep.”
“Did you ever try anything larger?”
“I transformed a container ship above the Marianas trench. It was a mistake.
“Why? You were rich!”
Kasprzak shrugged. “Ships made of gold…sink.”
_________________________
Author’s Notes:
The Marianas Trench is the deepest place in all the world’s oceans. At it’s deepest location is the Challenger Deep, famously explored by director James Cameron. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench
Written for the Friday Fictioneers. Look here for the week’s prompt and links to many other stories: https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/18-march-2016/
EagleAye
Momus News 
Ah yes, the Midas touch is not always such a wise thing to use!
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Yep. It didn’t work out so hot for King Midas either. There seems to be a theme to this. 😉
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Gold can be a shockingly impractical material for shipwrights. Good one.
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Isn’t it though? Great for electronic contacts, terrible for flotation devices. 😉 Glad you liked. Thanks! 🙂
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Wow, That is an expensive ship to sink, someone wasn’t thinking things through. Raise the Titanic, I think not. Raise the Gold ship from the Trench….
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Considering only two or three vessels in the world can survive diving into the Challenger Deep, raising even a golden ship wouldn’t be very cost effective. A painful lesson for the professor. 😉 Thanks much, Mandibelle! 🙂
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That’s too bad. Turning a ship to gold and losing it to the bottom of the sea. Haha! At least he has figured out how to turn things into gold that won’t be lost to the sea bottom. (He’s still wealthy!)
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No doubt. He could turn life-preservers into gold and live like a king! Just keep it small and don’t get greedy. That seems to be the moral of the story. 😉 Thanks much! 🙂
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This is the comment that was suddenly deleted from my Reader, right before my eyes! Thanks for the comment! Having this kind of ability might be useful, but then it might not be so great to have! LOL!
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Even if it didn’t sink (and if it didn’t carry any cargo, it probably would have floated even if it were made of gold), but it’s really impractical to change a container ship into gold anyway, because it probably would be very difficult to try to sell a container ship made of gold. 🙂
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Seriously? You think it would float? I have a hard time buying that one. And yeah, who could buy a golden container ship? With that much money you could buy Argentina! Maybe chop it up into chunks and sell it little bits at a time?
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Well, we don’t find it surprising that ships made of iron float. 🙂
It’s all about the water displacement – so if an iron ship can carry twice its weight in cargo, a gold one will float, too.
Assuming that the softer golden hull will hold and you could tow it to the nearest island, you could buy a small country with the proceeds. Not Argentina, though, because this ship would probably double the amount of available gold on the market and crash the gold prices. 🙂
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Imagine the fight for salvage rights if in the future diving that deep became an everyday occurrence 🙂
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I know! That would get pretty savage I imagine. Of course, cutting out a single porthole would make you rich enough to buy an island. A whole slew of people could become millionaires very quickly without claiming the whole thing. 😉
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Think not sink I said….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR0lWICH3rY
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Haha! I love it. Still smiling.
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That has me rolling…
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Aw, how the greedy often saw off their foot! (I have no idea what part of my Southern brain thought that one up, but there it is). Loved it! @sheilagood at Cow Pasture Chronicles
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Haha! Sounds like a good saying to me. Glad you enjoyed the story. Thanks kindly! 🙂
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You’re welcome.
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To Kasprzak (Health Warning) This method of changing items into gold poisons the water. Life without water!
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Ooh, that’s not good. I’ll make sure he gets the message. 😉 Thanks much, Mike! 🙂
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LOL. Poor professor, being too greedy gets you nowhere.
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No doubt. It always works out that way. 😉
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He’s ended up with a good but useless skill. I suppose he could try other things but if they all have to be on a column of water will they all sink?
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I was thinking about that. You could always tie a float to it. The float wold be outside the water column and thus wouldn’t change. It would still act as a float. Then just haul in the new gold thingee. Working in dribs and drabs, he could make a reasonable living.
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Better than working in a mine I suppose.
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Dear Eric,
It does make one think about where to lay up treasure, doesn’t it? Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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True. Leaving something in the Challenger Deep means safer than even in a bank. 😉 Thanks so much! 🙂
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Good incorporation of the philosopher’s stone!
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Thank you! I’m glad you liked it. 🙂
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Great story…Maybe one day a scientist will discover how to do a reversal and turn the gold ship back to it’s original form…..anything is possible! Just not provable, but that’s been said about a lot of things.😉
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Yeah it’s that “possible but not provable” realm where all my stories come from. I like the place. It’s fun. 😉 Thanks so much! 🙂
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Great idea! I like your character’s solution to alchemy. It seems his biggest reward may be pride, although he could still make a lot of money with small items like the model ship!
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I think that the satisfaction of figuring out the secret makes him happiest. He doesn’t really flaunt his wealth, but yeah, things like the model ship have left him quite comfortable. 😉 Thanks kindly, Emily! 🙂
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Archimedes disagrees (that gold boats must sink).
Of course, Alchemists probably wtfpwn Archimedes…
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Hint: Gold boats can have truly extraordinarily thin walls…therefore weigh next to nothing. Displace more water than your boat’s weight, and it floats!
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Oh you guys (you and X) are just pounding me over this one. 🙄
Trouble with gold is it’s a very soft metal. Now imagine container ship constructed with tough, rigid steel. Suddenly it’s all gold. The metal would bend and give. I think the weight of itself would trigger collapse. So yeah, you “could” build a boat made of gold that would float, but it wouldn’t be practical (outside of the obviously ridiculous expense). You couldn’t run it in the sea for long because the pounding seas would eventually break the necessarily thin skin of the hull. That’s my judgement anyway. 😉
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Yes, Eric.There seems to be a message in this gold thing. He better be careful. Someone may try to kidnap him to get the secret. Well done. 🙂 — Suzanne
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There certainly is. Would be thieves had better beware. He lives on a houseboat above a deep column of water. A thief may very well become the gold he seeks! 😉 Thanks so much, Suzanne! 🙂
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haha… of course they do, gold is h-e-a-v-y! Love the story, and the twist. hmmm, a golden dirigible…??? giggles.
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Glad you had fun. A golden dirigible? I think that would go over like a lead balloon. 😉 Thanks so much! 🙂
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cackling laughter! 🙂
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There’s always something practical to put a kink in the plans, isn’t there? If it isn’t the weight of the gold, it’s the inflation caused by flooding the market with too much of the precious metal.
All my best,
MG
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It always seems to work like that. There’s always a wrench stuck in the works somewhere. It’s true though. Flooding the market with gold would seriously crash price. Best to work piecemeal. Thanks so much! 🙂
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Great job! Life is full of little ironies!
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Isn’t it , though? Life always keeps it interesting. 😉 Thanks kindly! 🙂
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