What's The Most Expensive Thing Ever?

0:00If you saved a billion dollars every

0:02single day for your entire life, you

0:05still wouldn't come close to affording

0:07the most expensive thing ever. But to

0:10find out what that is, we'll be going on

0:12a journey through the most valuable

0:14things in existence, all starting

0:17with you. Because if someone

0:19hypothetically harvested all your

0:21organs, they could make 45 million.

0:23You're pretty expensive. But to find the

0:25most expensive thing ever, we need to

0:27look at much costlier items. With the

0:29next being a well-known painting that

0:32became famous for all the wrong reasons.

0:34It's 1503 in Italy. A rich silk merchant

0:37goes [music] up to a painter and says,

0:39"Could you make me a painting of my

0:40wife?" "Sure. Give me like

0:43uh

0:43like 2 weeks."

0:50Oh, no.

0:53Leonardo da Vinci never fully finished

0:55that painting, but he actually sold it

0:58right before [music] he died to the king

0:59of France. And it stayed in the bedrooms

1:01of powerful guys until ending up at a

1:03museum, where no one cared.

1:05Until it got stolen, then found, then

1:08taken on a PR campaign. And now this

1:1030-in plank of wood smeared with colored

1:12oil is valued at 1 billion [music]

1:15dollars. But nature's greatest work of

1:17art was found by complete accident. Sir

1:20Thomas Major Cullinan

1:22dug a hole in the ground and filled it

1:24with Africans to mine rocks for him. And

1:26in 1905, a diamond was found. And it

1:29happened to be the biggest diamond ever.

1:31Completely colorless, zero

1:33imperfections, the most chemically

1:36perfect rock produced by the planet. And

1:38the guy who found it was this guy. The

1:41mine's manager. He was just going for a

1:43stroll when he randomly saw it in the

1:45wall, and he got a nice check for it.

1:46Then the rock got cut up and shipped in

1:48a literal postal box to more white

1:50people. The total value of this rock is

1:52estimated at 2 billion dollars, making

1:55it the most expensive luxury item ever,

1:57thanks to its rarity and prestige. But

1:59the most expensive land ever is

2:01something you would never expect.

2:04France owned all this land in 1803 and

2:08the United States wanted a little piece

2:10of it. So they went over to France with

2:12$10 million

2:13and said, "Can we buy a little piece of

2:14your land?" France's leader and

2:16conqueror of Europe, Napoleon, was like,

2:18"HOW ABOUT YOU PAY ME 15 MILLION

2:21FOR THE whole thing?"

2:24Y- Yes. The Louisiana Purchase doubled

2:27the size of the United States at the

2:29cost of 4 cents per acre. This land

2:31today is worth thousands per acre,

2:33making it widely considered the single

2:35greatest land purchase [music] in

2:36history. As long as you don't ask the

2:39people originally living there.

2:41But the Louisiana Purchase wasn't the

2:43most expensive in history. There was a

2:45piece of land that cost way more than

2:47the entire American Midwest and it's

2:49[clears throat] this.

2:50This plot of land with a parking lot

2:52that cost $3 billion. Why did this

2:55parking lot cost more than a fifth of

2:57the United States? Well, back then the

2:59Louisiana Purchase was a gamble on an

3:01uncharted frontier. This modern-day plot

3:03of land in the center of one of the most

3:05valuable financial districts on Earth

3:07where the government artificially

3:09restricts the land supply was just a

3:11much safer investment. Land is valued

3:14for its potential, but the houses we put

3:16on top of the land are somehow even more

3:18expensive. In 2019, a finance guy spent

3:21$240 million on a high-altitude hollow

3:25brick in New York City that he doesn't

3:27even live in. Actually, all of these

3:28buildings are half empty cuz the rich

3:30people buying them are just treating

3:32them as investments. If they actually

3:34needed a place to stay, they would just

3:36do what the richest guy in India did and

3:37spend $2 billion erecting their own

3:41personal monument that has a dark

3:43secret. This is Antilia, the most

3:46expensive private residence in the world

3:48valued [music] today at 4.6 billion. It

3:50has a 168 car garage, three helipads, a

3:54snow room, and the entire thing was

3:56built on an orphanage. And if you're

3:59wondering where the orphans went, the

4:01house also has 600 servants. There are

4:03investments, there are status symbols,

4:05but the most expensive house ever

4:07[music] is the hardest to truly value.

4:10Its purchase price? 21,000

4:13pounds in 1761. When King George III

4:16bought Buckingham House, it was just a

4:18little shack for him to store his wife.

4:20But a few hundred years of renovations

4:23and millions in state funding, it became

4:25a 775 room palace. Its value is

4:29estimated at 4.9 billion pounds, but

4:32this is just a guess based on its prime

4:34location and historical significance. To

4:36find something more valuable than any

4:39house, we just need to scale up to the

4:41most impressive and disastrous

4:43structures in the world,

4:44>> [music]

4:44>> mega projects.

4:47The US Interstate Highway System is the

4:49most expensive mega project in history,

4:51costing an inflation-adjusted 634

4:53billion. But it was worth it. For every

4:55$1 of that cost, it's returned $6 in

4:58economic output. This project had a

5:00clear problem, a clear plan, and a clear

5:02result.

5:03Pretty straightforward.

5:05In 2021, Saudi Arabia started building a

5:07110 mile line-shaped city made out of

5:10Empire State Building tall glass

5:12mirrors. It was supposed to cost 500

5:14billion and be done by 2030, but now the

5:17date is maybe 2080 and the cost is maybe

5:208.8 trillion. The line will be the most

5:24expensive mega project ever if it

5:26actually gets built.

5:28If.

5:3045 Mount Everest above all of this is

5:33the International Space Station, the

5:35most expensive single object ever built

5:37by humans. But its cost is the least

5:39impressive thing about it. See,

5:41legendary mega projects like the

5:42pyramids represent what one civilization

5:45could do. The ISS represents what every

5:48civilization together could do. It took

5:50hundreds of thousands of experts from

5:52all over the world to manufacture parts

5:55that fit together perfectly when

5:56assembled in an empty void that would

5:58kill a human in 90 seconds. This is the

6:01greatest masterpiece ever built by

6:03humans and it shows what can be

6:05accomplished when the world comes

6:06together. But it's way more costly when

6:09the world comes apart.

6:11War

6:13is pretty expensive. The American Civil

6:15War cost so much that to fund it, the

6:17government had to invent paper money and

6:19the FEDERAL INCOME TAX. GOD

6:21>> [screaming]

6:21>> DAMN IT!

6:23>> [music]

6:25>> WORLD WAR I COST SO MUCH THAT Germany

6:27was still paying it off until 2010. And

6:30World War II was the most expensive

6:32conflict in history. The full global

6:35cost of this war has never been

6:36calculated, but it involved every major

6:38power devoting a majority of their

6:40entire economy to destruction. By the

6:43end of the war, 70 million were dead, a

6:45majority being civilians and most of the

6:47involved countries were in shambles.

6:49Military spending as a percentage of GDP

6:52has never come close to World War II

6:53levels since and if it ever does,

6:56we probably won't be aware. War is

6:59pretty [music] expensive.

7:01World War II military spending was 25

7:03trillion in today's dollars, but the

7:05cost of its destruction is unknown.

7:09All the things in this video have value

7:11for different reasons, but the most

7:13expensive thing ever is the most

7:16unusual.

7:19Every single particle

7:21has an antiparticle with an opposite

7:23[music] charge. When they touch, they

7:25annihilate and release energy. A single

7:27gram of antimatter could release more

7:30energy than three Hiroshima bombs.

7:33Bananas. Every 75 minutes an atom in a

7:37banana decays producing one single

7:39particle of antimatter, but the particle

7:41is so small that if you had one banana

7:44for every human that has [music] ever

7:46existed, you would have to wait 97 times

7:49the age of the universe to produce 1 g

7:51of antimatter. But that still wouldn't

7:53work because the banana antimatter

7:55particles only exist for 125

7:57picoseconds, which is 1 billionth of a

8:00blink.

8:02The only way to make a meaningful amount

8:04of antimatter is by firing tiny

8:06particles at almost the speed of light

8:08into a metal rod, then catching the

8:10debris in a vacuum. There's currently

8:12only one facility that does this, and in

8:14its entire existence, it's made less

8:16than 10 billionths of a gram of

8:18antimatter, which would make enough

8:19energy to power a light bulb for 4

8:21hours. Antimatter could be the most

8:24efficient energy source ever, and

8:26studying it could answer questions about

8:28how the universe was formed, but it's so

8:30difficult to make that NASA estimates 1

8:34g would cost 62.5

8:37trillion.

8:38But if we ever somehow managed to get a

8:41gram of antimatter, wouldn't the most

8:42expensive thing be whoever owns the

8:45antimatter, which would probably be a

8:47country, maybe the United States, which

8:49is already worth 180 trillion. But then,

8:52the Earth is worth 5 quadrillion. And

8:55now that we're in space, there are

8:56asteroids floating around with

8:58quintillions worth of gold and platinum.

9:00And [music] the Sun is made of gas worth

9:0230 nonillion. The universe is filled

9:05with an infinite amount of wealth, all

9:08of which we got for free.