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Alchemists' Long-Awaited Dream of Turning Lead Into Gold Finally Comes True

Near collisions between atomic nuclei of lead cause its identity to completely transform inside the world's largest particle accelerator.

BY SOMDATTA MAITY

PUBLISHED 4 DAYS AGO

Synthetic made gold crystals by the chemical transport reaction in chlorine gas. Purity >99.99% (Representative Cover Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Photo by Alchemist-hp)

For anybody, it would be a dream come true to get a power that could turn lead into gold. Such a power could turn someone into the richest person in the world. Scientists have somewhat turned this fantasy into reality, stated Space. This mind-blowing transformation has happened in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest as well as highest energy particle accelerator. Findings regarding this analysis have been published in Physical Review Journals.

Gold Glitter Lot (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Achira22) — Gold glitter lot (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Achira22)

The LHC's objective was to move particles at the speed of light and allow experts to observe their interactions. The observation helped researchers in not only understanding the fundamental building blocks of matter, but also the smallest units that make up the universe. The changes shown by the particles give people an idea about how they could behave in different circumstances. One of the experiments led to the transmutation of lead into gold.

In this case, though, the change did not come through direct collisions. It was through the near-misses between atomic nuclei. Here, the lead particles did not make any direct contact but produced such strong electromagnetic fields that they produced uncanny nuclear reactions.

These nuclear reactions resulted in such a massive burst of energy that it changed the very identity of lead atomic nuclei, turning them into gold atomic nuclei, according to SciTech Daily. The lead nucleus contains 82 protons in total, each of which carries one elementary charge. This implies that it produces a very strong electromagnetic field. In the LHC, the nuclei were travelling at a speed equivalent to 99.999993% of the speed of light. The speed and strength make the electromagnetic field lines arrange themselves in a thin pancake, perpendicular to the direction of motion. All of this produces a short-lived pulse of photons.

In such conditions, oftentimes a process called electromagnetic dissociation gets facilitated. This process features an interaction between a photon and a nucleus. Such interactions create oscillations within the nucleus' internal structure. These oscillations can eject some neutrons and protons, which eventually can change the nucleus' identity. Gold nucleus carries 79 protons, and hence, in this process, three protons were released, for the unbelievable change to happen.

Uliana Dmitrieva of the ALICE collaboration, the project associated with the experiment, claims this is the first time gold nuclei have been detected and produced through lead nuclei in the LHC, according to Space. The team further stated that 89,000 gold nuclei per second can be produced through lead-on-lead collisions in the LHC. Four experiments featuring these clashes were conducted between 2015 to 2018 at LHC, and 86 billion gold nuclei were produced. This massive number corresponds to 29 picograms (2.9 ×10-11 grams) of gold material, researchers shared.

Gold nugget from Australia. (public display, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA) (Representative Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Photo by James St. John)

The study also shared that the gold doesn't exist for long. The created gold atoms are so energetic that they clash with the beam pipe or collimators inside the LHC, and break into protons, neutrons, and other particles. These atoms are not stable, and hence can't be further used for different pursuits in the gold identity. The Midas touch is still a faraway dream.