What if he is playing with (100) 1909-1982 copper pennies?
Metal Composition: 95% copper, 5% zinc
Total Weight: 3.11 grams
Using the latest metal prices and the specifications above, these are the numbers required to calculate melt value:
$3.9749 = copper price / pound on May 12, 2011.
.95 = copper %
$0.9753 = zinc price / pound on May 12, 2011.
.05 = zinc %
3.11 = total weight in grams
.00220462262 = pound/gram conversion factor (see note directly below)
The NYMEX uses pounds to price these metals, that means we need to multiply the metal price by .00220462262 to make the conversion to grams.
1. Calculate 95% copper value :
(3.9749 × .00220462262 × 3.11 × .95) = $0.0258903
2. Calculate 5% zinc value :
(0.9753 × .00220462262 × 3.11 × .05) = $0.0003342
3. Add the two together :
$0.0258903 + $0.0003342 = $0.0262245
$0.0262245 is the melt value for the 1909-1982 copper cent on May 12, 2011.
Those same 100 pennies can bring in $2.62
It is like watching someone playing with 100 pennies, making all sorts of arrangements with them - towers, circles, pyramids, etc. - and hoping they add up to more than a dollar. No matter how you arrange the coins, it will always be a dollar. It is impossible to come up with more.
So you are going to constantly get booed down by the guys stacking pennies and saying "wait, if we put this one like this, and stand this one on its edge, and spin this one just this way . . ."
Guys, if 100 pennies added up to more than a dollar, this universe would not exist in its current form. If overunity was possible, then everything we know about the basic forces of nature - magnetic, gravitational - would be flat wrong, and I do not see how atoms could even stick together in that world. Just stop it, give it up. I am not an MIB, but really, go research wind or geothermal or something that obeys the laws of physics and get off this pipe dream.