So, here is the answer that you have all been waiting for… how much would it cost to buy all of the 59 elements that make up Benedict Cumberbatch?
Our answer is £96,546.79.
How close were you? The winners will be contacted soon to claim their free “Ingredients” t-shirt. Congratulations to you all!
How did we do it?
We used the elemental composition of a human body as quoted in The Elements, by John Emsley.
We assumed the weight of Benedict Cumberbatch to be 79kg.
We “bought” the non-gaseous elements in their standard state and in their purest available form (only the best for Benedict!) from the chemical supplier Sigma Aldrich®.
We “bought” the gases from the industrial gas supplier BOC.
We couldn’t “buy” fluorine in its pure form, so we bought potassium fluoride and hydrofluoric acid, which are used to make it in industry.
Here are our calculations:
All of the remaining elements: Bromine, Lead, Copper, Aluminium, Cadmium, Cerium, Barium, Iodine, Tin, Titanium, Boron, Nickel, Selenium, Chromium, Manganese, Arsenic, Lithium, Caesium, Mercury, Germanium, Molybdenum, Cobalt, Antimony, Silver, Niobium, Zirconium, Lanthanum, Gallium, Tellurium, Yttrium, Bismuth, Thallium, Indium, Gold, Scandium, Tantalum, Vanadium, Thorium, Uranium, Samarium, Tungsten and Beryllium come to a total of £9.12.