The dream of the ancient alchemists was to turn metal into gold. At the time, it was believed that a special reagent called the Philosopher’s Stone had to be created for this magical process. But modern science has proven: it is indeed possible – but not at all as the alchemists imagined. The ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland has accidentally demonstrated how lead nuclei lose protons to become gold. True, the amount of “synthesized” metal is so minuscule that it’s not even enough for an ant’s wedding ring – only 29 trillionths of a gram.
Lead and gold differ by only three protons in the nucleus. To “turn” one element into the other, you have to knock the extra particles out of lead. In nature, such a transformation occurs when supernovae explode. Scientists have learned how to reproduce a similar process on Earth. To do this, physicists accelerate lead nuclei to nearly the speed of light and collide them. During such collisions, electromagnetic fields of incredible strength – a million times more powerful than the fields during lightning – are generated. This force literally “rips” protons out of nuclei, turning lead into gold, thallium or mercury.
The nuclei of atoms are held together by the strong nuclear force, which acts only over microscopic distances. It requires extreme conditions to overcome it, mimicking the state of the universe moments after the Big Bang. These are the conditions created in the collider. However, even there, transformation is rare: only 89,000 gold nuclei are created every second.
The gold nuclei are not detected in the detectors. But scientists analyze the number of protons released using special sensors. If a lead nucleus loses three protons, it automatically becomes gold.
Fake alchemy
In fact, it’s more of a problem for physicists. “Reborn” gold nuclei change the trajectory of the beam in the collider, encounter the walls of the booster and reduce the efficiency of experiments. However, studying this process helps to better understand the behavior of nuclear matter under extreme conditions – knowledge essential for future research in high-energy physics.
Unlike the dreams of medieval thinkers, the modern method will never be a source of wealth. The energy and technology costs to produce microscopic gold particles are unreasonably high. But this experiment shows: the transformation of elements is not magic, but the result of a deep understanding of the laws of nature.
So, the collider proved: alchemy is possible, but only as a side effect of basic research. And although gold is created from lead, its final “value” is billions of times the market price. The main discovery here is not metal, but new horizons for science.
Earlier we reported on how magnetars “gifted” gold and platinum to the Earth.
According to Space
