The age-old dream of turning lead into gold, a pursuit that once captivated ancient alchemists, has finally been realized by modern-day physicists. But here's the catch: it's not as magical as it sounds. Physicists have achieved this ancient goal, but the process is far from practical.
The modern scientific approach differs vastly from the mystical practices of alchemy, yet the curiosity and ambition to understand the universe remain unchanged. While contemporary scientists explore the cosmos and its origins, ancient alchemists sought simpler transformations, like creating gold. Chrysopoeia, the term for artificial gold creation, eluded even the most renowned alchemists. However, modern physicists have found a way to make this happen, albeit with a few caveats.
The process is straightforward in theory: use a particle accelerator, an abundance of energy, and a substantial budget. CERN, with its Large Hadron Collider, conducted the ALICE experiment, aiming to replicate the conditions after the Big Bang by colliding lead particles at near-light speed. This resulted in an astonishing 86 billion gold nuclei, but there's a twist. The amount produced is so tiny—trillionths of a gram—that it's practically insignificant.
And here's where it gets even more intriguing: this gold is not usable in the conventional sense. Its minuscule quantity makes it undetectable by standard means, requiring specialized equipment like zero-degree calorimeters to measure neutron and proton changes. Moreover, the gold atoms were highly unstable, lasting less than a microsecond before disintegrating. So, is this scientific feat a triumph or a mere curiosity?
At the chemical level, lead and gold appear vastly different. However, at the atomic level, the distinction is merely the number of protons in their nuclei. Lead has 82 protons, while gold has 79. The challenge lies in removing exactly three protons from the lead nucleus, and this is where it gets controversial. While we can't precisely control proton removal, scientists at CERN managed to do so through a process of trial and error, resulting in the removal of three protons and the creation of gold.
The removal of protons is no easy feat due to the strong electromagnetic force holding the lead nucleus together. Physicists harnessed the power of near-collision interactions, where particles moving near the speed of light briefly affect each other's electromagnetic fields, potentially stripping off protons. This method can transform lead into various elements, including gold, depending on the number of protons removed.
Despite this breakthrough, the process is still far from efficient. It relies on high-speed particle collisions and chance, producing minuscule amounts of gold at great cost and with low reliability. So, is this a scientific curiosity or a potential game-changer for the gold market?
The ALICE physicists at CERN weren't the first to create artificial gold. In fact, there's a Guinness World Record for this feat, though it's no longer current. The earliest recorded instance was in 1941, when fast-moving neutrons transmuted mercury into an unstable, radioactive gold isotope. In 1980, a team including Glenn T. Seaborg, namesake of the element seaborgium, created gold from bismuth isotopes. They also suggested the possibility of lead-to-gold transmutation, but the instability of the resulting gold made it impractical to separate and observe.
In 2022, CERN scientists produced a mere 18 gold nuclei by bombarding a uranium target, and in 2002 and 2004, another CERN team documented lead-to-gold transmutation using near-miss collisions. While the recent amounts produced are still minuscule, they represent significant progress. Unless China resumes work on its particle accelerator, this may be the closest we get to practical gold production for some time.
What do you think? Is this scientific achievement a remarkable success or a step towards a controversial future?
