Question
You are writing an adventure novel in which the hero escapes across the border with a billion dollars’ worth of gold in his suit-case. Is this possible? Would that amount of gold fit in a suitcase? Would it be too heavy to carry?
Solution
Let me break it down for you so that you can see if it’s really possible to escape with a billion dollars’ worth of gold in a suitcase.
First, how much gold are we talking about? As of now, the price of gold is around $60,000 per kilogram. So, to get a billion dollars’ worth, we would need roughly 16,667 kilograms of gold. That’s over 16 metric tons!
Now, would that fit in a suitcase? Not quite. Gold is dense, this tells us that even a small amount weighs a lot. Again, a standard suitcase has a volume of about 40-50 liters. Since gold is extremely dense, you could fit about 20 kilograms of gold in a suitcase that size— My friend, this is nowhere near a billion dollars’ worth.
What about the weight? May be we can assume we somehow managed to fit as much gold as possible into the suitcase. Even if it was just a few hundred kilograms, this quantity of gold would still be impossible to carry by hand. For comparison, a normal person can comfortably carry a bag weighing about 20-30 kg. A suitcase stuffed with gold would be so heavy that even the strongest person (can I say in WWE wrestling?) couldn’t lift it, let alone escape across a border with it.
In short, it’s a fun idea for an adventure novel, but you see, in reality, smuggling a billion dollars’ worth of gold in a suitcase isn’t physically possible. The weight is far too heavy and wouldn’t fit. You might need to think of a more creative way for your hero to transport all that wealth!