Imagine an Earth where there is NO gold. Absolutely zero grams.

Look up technetium

>>8744181
we can make gold
it's just very difficult and expensive

there's plenty of things on the periodic table that don't seem to exist naturally, and we don't treat them like dark matter.

there would however be theories as to why there is no gold on this planet, because it seems incredibly unlikely that would happen

>>8744181

We would know it must exist but we would probably have hypothesis to explain why we don't find any atoms of element 79 but we do find atoms of numbers 78 and down and 80 and up. Most likely it'd be an interesting textbook fact that for some reason element 79 is so unstable that it decays instantly upon formation, so we don't see any of it in nature. That would be the most likely explanation, because we'd know at that point that some elements are unstable and others are so unstable that they have very short half lives.

However if we ever tried to test that hypothesis by combining atoms in an accelerator we'd find that gold is actually very stable and would scratch our heads as to why it doesn't exist in Earth' crust. We'd find it by probing the solar system both in asteroids and in the crusts of the other planets so further head scratching would ensue. Eventually through some means we'd acquire a sample of gold and learn that it is yellow, very corrosion resistant, conducts heat and electricity well, and so forth.

>>8744181
>>8744188
Astatine is also practically absent from earth.

>>8744190
>we can make gold
Oh yeah true :D I forgot about that...

There are quite a few elements that don't occur naturally except in minute amounts of short-lived isotopes from rare radioactive decays, we knew they existed and were eventually able to create and detect them.

>>8744188
But we have that and use it in medical devices.

>>8744181
They would assume that gold has a very short half life or is otherwise unstable, so it has all already decayed, which would probably contradict other theories about how atomic nuclei work, causing them much headache. Or maybe they'd think that gold atoms can be stable, but don't form naturally for reasons. Then they would get to the level technologically where they can synthesize gold atoms in very small amounts, notice that they don't decay and that they aren't that hard to create, and shit brix. Now imagine a universe where every time they do the double slit experiment, the pattern that is drawn by the photons hitting the plate clearly says "death to all Jews". How would scientists react to that?

>>8744181
they would just theorize that its there and look for it.

this happened more than once with many elements early on in chemistrys life.

>>8744195
We would probably think its stable since its position in the table would insinuate that.

>>8744196

>"Miserable to make and he'll to work with"

>>8744181
Maybe we would come up with some geological explanation about how all the gold sunk into the planet's core so deep when the planet formed that it isn't present in surface rock or in volcanic lava.

>>8744181
Your hypothetical example is shit because it requires magical intervention to scoop away all gold from a planet and in a universe that otherwise follows all regular laws of physics.

Of course they'd be fucking puzzled. A goddamn spacetime-bending prankster decided to remove an element to see what happens.

>>8744710
It's not impossible and it requires no prankster, it can simply happen by chance, and it is interesting to consider what would happen if we witnessed an event so ridiculously unlikely.

>>8744720
No, not impossible but the chance of it occuring is still 0.

>>8744753
>the chance of it occurring is 0
Are you retarded? There is no law that says says there have to be at least x atoms of gold in every planet. Statistically, there is clearly a non-zero chance of a planet containing no atoms of gold, and if the universe is infinite, or if some multiverse theory is true, it has almost definitely happened somewhere.

Plutonium didn't exist until somebody invented it, right?

>>8744765
>Statistically, there is clearly a non-zero chance of a planet containing no atoms of gold
OK so since its so clear you should have no issue proving it,

>>8744765
Even if it's possible that doesn't make the chance of it occurring non-zero. Learn to probability.

>>8744181
Nothing. The only thing that would change would be named similarly to Americium or Thorium.

It would be given a silly ass name after being created in a lab.

>>8744765
Yes, but by that logic a version of you has already been handed a better refutation than this, so we won't bother to refute your argument.

>>8744181
Gold is not the only rare element used for barter.
They would leave the element "zychorsi" blank and look for it in spectroscopic analysis of other planets or stars. Zychorsi? Well it sure wouldn't be called Gold.
The earth, of course, would look different; but it'd be the same as it's always been.

>>8744783
There is a chance that random neutrons from space radiation would hit all the gold atoms which would in turn decay into mercury.

>>8744784
That's why I said it has almost definitely happened, and not that it definitely happened.

>>8744790
That is fallacy because you prove something by assuming a proof exists.

>>8744181
we'd find it in meteorites

>>8744513
because we made it all

>>8744969
yeah it'd be seen similar to Iridium

>>8744181
>i don't know the history of Helium: the post

move on people.