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Ridiculous hoax, but a good opportunity for some back of the envelope fun.
5 cent coins have passed the seigniorage point of parity: 5 cent coins cost more than 5 cents in materials and production; materials come to 7.36 cents at today's prices, total cost is supposedly above 11 cents (lets say...11.25 cents).
So not counting the cost of transporting such a huge number of coins, and looking at the cost of manufacturing (not commissioning) 20 Billion coins: It would make the payment effectively $2.25 Billion dollars.
The coins would weigh 100-thousand metric tons, which is roughly the total weight of 2 "Titanic" ships, or the same mass as 67% of all the gold mined in the history of man.
1 coin's volume is approximately .69cm3, so 20 Billion of them would have a volume of 13800m3: roughly 5.5 Olympic sized swimming pools. BUT: circular objects do not stack efficiently, there is that empty space between them, star shaped in square packing, or pointy-triangle shaped in the most efficient hexagonal packing. Hex packing has a density of around 0.9069, so the volume would be 13800m3 *(1/0.9069) which is 15216.67m3, or 487342 cubic feet.
That is assuming the coins aren't wrapped in cardboard tubes, then packed into boxes, and that they are stacked with perfect efficiency without falling everywhere and making a big pain in the arse mess. Can you imagine having to load the trucks like that? Jesus.
Anyway, brief research suggests one semi-trailer can carry 4085ft3 (only 120 trucks needed!) but the weight limits are going to be the limiting factor: 80000 pounds Maximum in California (much less for most roads, but it's tough looking up local route restrictions to Apple offices while sitting in Australia) which is 36.3 metric tons = 2755 truck loads.
Vastly more would be needed if they're going over restricted roads (9000, 6000 pound limits everywhere for example; 18,369 and 36,738 truck loads respectively.)
So there you go!"
niet mijn info, maar moest wel lachen toen ik het las
