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It has been a long-time dream for alchemists and scientists alike to be able to turn one element into another. One of the central ideas was the transmutation of lead into gold. After all, in ancient times, gold was one of the most valuable materials you could possess. However, recent scientific experiments have been able to do just this, but not in a practical, wealth-generating way. Let’s find out how the scientists did it and its implications for the world.
The Alchemy Dream Comes True
Physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have announced that they have achieved a long-sought dream of alchemists, turning lead into gold. However, they have only done it by a fraction of a second.
To be able to turn lead into gold, one would need to remove three protons from the nucleus of a lead particle. The main difference between the two is that lead has 82 protons while gold has 79. This is exactly what the physicist at CERN has done.
By accelerating the particles to nearly the speed of light and orchestrating a near-miss collision, they were able to reduce the 3 protons from lead, turning it into gold atoms, which decayed soon after. This method mimics alchemy, but in the form of physics and with the help of modern technology.
Read more: CERN
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Tiny Gold Nuclei, Big Scientific Insight
The physicist working at the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, has detected over 89,000 gold nuclei per second during the peak of the experimentation. This amount is equivalent to 29 picograms of gold, a minuscule size barely visible to the human eye.
These gold atoms also did not stay as gold; they existed for just millionths of a second before they ultimately decayed. It means that those atoms’ nucleus is unstable and spontaneously changes into a different form, which is not of gold in this case. This made the experiment scientifically significant, but economically not.
Other Materials That Could Theoretically Become Gold
After transforming lead into gold, theoretically, the other elements that are near in the periodic table of elements are also capable of being transmuted into gold. For example, mercury, which has an atomic number of 80, only needs 1 proton to be removed to be gold in theory, which has an atomic number of 79.
Platinum and bismuth are also candidates, but all of them would be very expensive and more complex to turn into gold. There are currently not enough benefits for humanity to push through these scientific achievements, especially because you would only be able to generate a tiny speck of gold even with the use of millions of dollars worth of energy and equipment.
However, the fact that the scientists were able to turn lead into gold even for a very short time is a testament to how much our understanding and technology have evolved over time.
Read more: Wikipedia
From Alchemists to Particle Physics
Alchemy is one of the forefront ideas and concepts during the medieval time whose goal is to transform matter into a different form, such as lead into gold. It is primarily concerned with turning less valuable materials into high-value ones, along with finding an elixir that can cure almost all diseases.
Since there were no or few scientific bases for these goals during that time, it is often associated with sorcery or witchcraft, instead of a field of science. But now, with the help of high-energy particle physics, these dreams have been turned into reality, with real pieces of evidence.
Author's Final Thoughts
Physicists have finally made the alchemists’ dreams of turning lead into gold after hundreds of years. It is currently not economical to produce them at scale, as you would need to spend more energy and other resources just for a tiny particle, but someday this technology would stand as one of the core foundations that changes human civilization. It might be able to freely turn various materials into one that we currently need during that particular time, whether that is gold or other elements.
Read more: Scientists Confirm that Humans Emit a Certain Light that Disappears the Moment Their Life Ends
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