You’ll Never Guess What The Most Expensive Material Known to Man Is
What is the most expensive material known to man? You might think it’s something like diamonds, but that’s not the most costly. And when it comes to scientific uses, it’s not even close.
Transcript
00:00If I ask you what was the most expensive material known to man, you might say something like
00:08diamonds, but that's not the most costly, not by a staggering long shot, and especially
00:14not to scientists.
00:15Often the most precious materials come from space, for instance the rock and mineral samples
00:19that were recently brought back from the asteroid Bennu.
00:22That mission's total expenditure is expected to pass 1.16 billion dollars, and they only
00:27brought back 9 ounces of asteroid samples.
00:29According to professor of astronomy Chris Impey, that brings the total to 132 million
00:34dollars per ounce, or roughly 70,000 times the price of gold.
00:39That's not even close to the most expensive material known to humankind.
00:42The astronomy professor explains that the most costly material is antimatter.
00:47Antimatter occurs naturally, but only exists for fleeting moments, as antiparticles quickly
00:51meet particles and turn into radiation.
00:53However, particle accelerators can produce it, but if you want to create a single ounce
00:57of them, it would take billions of years, meaning one ounce would require the machine
01:02to be on for that time, at a cost of around a billion billion dollars.