The ancient alchemist's dream of turning lead into gold has been briefly realized by physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. Beams of lead ions were collided at near-light speeds, momentarily creating gold atoms.
This transmutation was observed by the ALICE experiment, designed to study heavy ion collisions. The intense electromagnetic fields ejected protons from the lead nuclei (82 protons), transforming them into gold (79 protons).
Between 2015 and 2018, approximately 86 billion gold nuclei were produced. However, this gold was extremely unstable, existing for only about one microsecond before decaying.
Uliana Dmitrieva, a physicist with the ALICE collaboration, explained that this is the first time the production of gold has been systematically detected and analyzed at the LHC. While not practical for gold production, the study enhances understanding of how photons can alter atomic nuclei.