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Posted on 01/21/2026 1:43:49 PM PST by yesthatjallen
In a remarkable twist that bridges ancient ambition with cutting-edge science, physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider have achieved what medieval alchemists only dreamed of: turning lead into gold. While attempting to recreate conditions moments after the Big Bang, researchers on the ALICE experiment in Switzerland inadvertently produced minuscule quantities of the precious metal, marking an unexpected breakthrough in particle physics.
The Accidental Discovery
The extraordinary transformation occurred during experiments where beams of lead nuclei were fired at each other at velocities approaching the speed of light. While the primary goal was to study the primordial state of the universe, the scientists discovered they had created approximately 29 trillionths of a gram of gold as a byproduct of their collisions.
This modern alchemy works on a fundamental principle: lead atoms contain exactly three more protons than gold atoms. By removing precisely three protons from a lead nucleus, the element transforms into gold. The challenge lies in the immense forces required to achieve this proton removal.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at britbrief.co.uk ...
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It took the world’s largest atom smasher to produce a few atoms of gold. No one is going to get rich this way.
That’s nothing. Can they make silk from a pig’s ear?
It likely would be cheaper to build spaceships and find gold in the asteroids than to make it in the collider.
They have been able to do this for at least 40 years.
You’d have more luck at lassoing a meteor made of gold in deep outer space than making lots of gold this way.
Aw, you beat me to it by 3 seconds!
While attempting to recreate conditions moments after the Big Bang...
Genesis 2
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
Do you have a working link for the thread article? I get a 404 error.
Yeah, just kidding. I have a bit of “metals” too.
I remember my 7th grade science teacher making a claim that if you could remove a proton or 3 from mercury, lead, bismuth, etc. you’d have gold. I couldn’t really wrap my head around the concept of a different metal becoming gold, but here we are, I guess. At least in minuscule quantities.
“It is possible that our Hadron Collider Experiment will cause the universe to implode, but the chances are very small” — scientist
And the cost of producing ONE GRAM of gold by this process costs about $100 million dollars. (sarc)
All my lead is covered in copper.....and it’s better that way!
It costs about a trillion dollars to do this.
About the only way this makes any sense to create gold is to create it and then hide it until the costs of making it have filtered through the economy.
‘ It costs about a trillion dollars to do this.
About the only way this makes any sense to create gold is to create it and then hide it until the costs of making it have filtered through the economy.’
You’ve never written a business plan have you?
It only took a $5 billion collider and $200K in energy to produce it!
My periodic table doesn’t show the element bdellium..
It wouldn’t be.
Bdellium refers to a fragrant gum resin from Commiphora trees (like Indian or African varieties) used historically in perfumes, incense, and medicine, often called “false myrrh,” but also mentioned in the Bible alongside gold
now if they can just get the cost down to under a gazillion dollars per gold atom, they’ll really have something!
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