http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-05-29

Actually, rather than being annexed into the Reich itself, Denmark was made into a protectorate (so the government and king were left in place -- but instrumented to serve the Reich's purposes). Similar to the status of the Netherlands and Norway.

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site."

Even if you did, I'm sure several others got to know of this just today - which makes it worthwhile IMO.

To hide them.

The Germans are not going to spend a division of soldiers 4 years to dig up all of Copenhagen.

There are innumerable places to hide them.

They also could have simply been deformed i.e. markings removed, then they're just clumps of gold and evidence of nothing.

Just hide them! I wonder why Nobel laureate Niels Bohr and future Nobel laureate George de Hevesy didn't think of that.

Because they are geniuses and probably over-think everything.

It would take 20 minutes to find a spot to hide them, and they wouldn't be recovered for 1000 years if people weren't the wiser. But it would be pointless because you can remove the markings with any hard objects, basically instantly.

The Nazis were not 'hunting' for this stuff, even if they were, it wouldn't be worth any effort.

Step 1) take a hammer to them and remove the markings. Gold is soft and malleable. Evidence = gone. 5 minutes.

If you're worried about having arbitrary bits of unmarked gold:

+ Throw it in the garbage next door + Throw it in a bag in the harbour + Bury them in the lane or garden around the corner + Throw it in the sewer

It's just a couple of small bits of unmarked gold at that point. Wherever it's found - or not - it's meaningless.

There are some anecdotes to the contrary.

Enrico Fermi famously estimated the strength of the first atomic bomb by "dropping from about six feet small pieces of paper before, during and after the passage of the blast wave."

Richard Feynman tested the integrity of an o-ring which he concluded must have caused the Challenger disaster by dropping the o-ring in to a glass of cold water and noticing its deformation.

These are but the first two examples that spring to mind of simple solutions found by "geniuses". I'd also categorize the way the gold medals were hidden as another simple (and brilliant) solution. It would be interesting to read a compilation of such anecdotes, if one exists.

Your response reads like "now it's just worthless gold!"

Yes, they probably could have buried it in the woods somewhere, but that wouldn't have made for the cool story to tell the grandkids.

Though I guess they could have found somewhere else...

That's kind of what was done. It was a clever simple hack. I'm not sure how hard it is to prepare aqua regia (maybe they had a sufficient quantity already), but all they had to do was drop the metals in, wait, and place on a shelf with other innocuous flasks and solutions.

The Nazis would surely dig up his offices, but not Copenhagen.

Moreover, the Nazis didn't even know that those things were there - and they don't really have much value at all to the Nazis. They're a couple of pieces of gold.

The Nazis could do whatever they pleased with whomever they wanted - it's ridiculous to think that a couple of tiny pieces of gold would have changed their view on what to do with an acclaimed scientist. It's laughable.

They'll capture a Scientist and put him to work on whatever they want, or not.

A couple of pieces of gold are totally irrelevant.

If this were a bottle of 'heavy water' or some nuclear material, or piece of gear that they knew existed, knew was in his possession and had some strategic value, then they might spend some time looking for it. Otherwise this is not a story.

Many people were killed on a whim by the Nazis, without much if any reason at all. Being a famous scientist wouldn't necessarily save you (and especially not your valuables, which were frequently confiscated).

Then there's a good chance that the grunts who searched these people wouldn't know who they were, wouldn't care, or even feel contempt or hatred for them because of who they were or what they said or did, and would in fact value gold far more than their lives.

Random gold found in the harbour does not implicate Bohr.

Sure, the Danes basically lay down and let the Germans march in, but really? The Germans needed to get to Norway asap, and were probably more concerned about that. Secure airfields, harbors, that kind of thing.

More likely the Danish cooperation policy helped later on, after the Germans had established themselves. Basically, the Danish government decided to save everyone a lot of trouble by cooperating with the invaders, a policy that is much discussed in Danish politics. It came to an end in 1943 after the Germans had done a number of hard to tolerate things.

Your mere disbelief is rather weak in the face of statements like that one.

The notes and errata at the end of the book don't seem to specify it either.

The point is the article makes it look like "oh crap the nazis have invaded, let's dissolve these medals" rather than "they been here for a few weeks and look like they're about to settle some bits of nazi business".

https://archive.org/stream/adventuresinradi01heve#page/27/mo...

I imagine they were thinking about hiding them pretty soon after the city fell though. I agree that overdramatizing the timing is unfortunate.

I mean, that spot in your neighbors yard that looks freshly dug would probably be a good place to look. (They were occupying the whole country)

So, not going out in the middle of the night in ninja swit; but chearful gardening in the Church's front yard instead.

You can even put a heavy, thorny bush on top, so people will be too lazy to undig it by accident.

I'd probably have tried to melt them, though.

They could have a little festival every year to look for it ...

But the article predates his knighthood. (and presumably youtube fame)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyn_Poliakoff

> As you can see in this video from the University of Nottingham, dissolving gold is a slow business. The narrator (who looks like he was cast by Mel Brooks, but is presumably, the real deal) explains that nitric acid loosens the gold atoms, after which hydrochloric acid moves in, using its chloride ions to surround and transform the gold.

I really don't see where you read that he's been knighted, other than Wikipedia. From the videos YouTube page I didn't get his name either, and there are no comments in the article.

There's absolutely no need to be condescending... That description (which you quoted) was genuinely funny to me because I know who he is.

> I like how the author of this piece talk about Sir Martyn Poliakoff.

> But the article predates his knighthood. (and presumably youtube fame)

And there were no mentions to Sir Poliakoff around, neither in the article nor the video. Still, it was interesting reading about him, and he surely has become an internet celebrity, but that doesn't change that your comment was out of place to begin with.