• Depending on the rules, exactly does this magic conserve mass? Uranium would get bigger, cotton candy would shrink to a flake? All of the air in the world weighs 5.5 quadrillion tons. A ton of gold is 16.5 cubic inches, or 270 cm³ - so a block about the length of your foot plus a bit per side 5.5 quadrillion of those - a 1,487 cubic km block.

    I’d choose to shape it into a giant pyramid, which would minimize how much it sinks into the crust, and look cool AF for the 130-odd seconds it takes everyone to asphyxiate because we’re staring at a giant gold pyramid made from the matter that used to be the atmosphere.