Before Chemistry was a science, there was Alchemy. One of the supreme quests of alchemy is to transmute lead into gold. Lead (atomic number 82) and gold (atomic number 79) are defined as elements by the number of protons they possess. Changing the element requires changing the atomic (proton) number. The number of protons cannot be altered by any chemical means.
However, physics may be used to add or remove protons and thereby change one element into another. Because lead is stable, forcing it to release three protons requires a vast input of energy, such that the cost of transmuting it greatly surpasses the value of the resulting gold.
Transmutation of lead into gold isn't just theoretically possible - it has been achieved! There are reports that Glenn Seaborg, 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, succeeded in transmuting a minute quantity of lead (possibly en route from bismuth, in 1980) into gold. There is an earlier report (1972) in which Soviet physicists at a nuclear research facility near Lake Baikal in Siberia accidentally discovered a reaction for turning lead into gold when they found the lead shielding of an experimental reactor had changed to gold.
Today particle accelerators routinely transmute elements. A charged particle is accelerated using electrical and/or magnetic fields. In a linear accelerator, the charged particles drift through a series of charged tubes separated by gaps. Every time the particle emerges between gaps, it is accelerated by the potential difference between adjacent segments. In a circular accelerator, magnetic fields accelerate particles moving in circular paths. In either case, the accelerated particle impacts a target material, potentially knocking free protons or neutrons and making a new element or isotope. Nuclear reactors also may used for creating elements, although the conditions are less controlled.
In nature, new elements are created by adding protons and neutrons to hydrogen atoms within the nuclear reactor of a star, producing increasingly heavier elements, up to iron (atomic number 26). This process is called nucleosynthesis. Elements heavier than iron are formed in the stellar explosion of a supernova. In a supernova gold may be made into lead, but not the other way around.
While it may never be commonplace to transmute lead into gold, it is practical to obtain gold from lead ores. The minerals galena (lead sulfide, PbS), cerussite (lead carbonate, PbCO3), and anglesite (lead sulfate, PbSO4) often contain zinc, gold, silver, and other metals. Once the ore has been pulverized, chemical techniques are sufficient to separate the gold from the lead. The result is almost alchemy...almost.
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Lead into GoldFiction, © Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
The alchemists tried to turn lead into gold. If any of them succeeded, the word never got out. Personally, I do not think that any of them succeeded. It is a nuclear process, after all. Many alchemists probably had a very good intuitive understanding of chemistry. But nuclear reactions remained hidden within the nucleus of the atom. There just were not any clues, until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Uranium, and similar metals like Plutonium, spontaneously "decay" into lead. In essence, they fall downhill, losing energy, and become lead. This is because Uranium has a much higher energy "state" than lead does. Things tend to go downhill. Uranium goes downhill to lead. It is perfectly natural.
Well, lead has more energy than gold. That may surprise you. Here is gold, shiny and special. There is lead, dull and disgusting, when you come right down to it. But it is true. Lead has more energy than gold. So it is natural for lead to go downhill and become gold. Why doesn't it?
None of the non-radioactive elements ever spontaneously changes into an element with less energy. There are barriers. One of these natural atoms must gain energy, before it can finally go downhill to a lower energy. It is said that each of these atoms is stable.
None of the non-radioactive elements ever spontaneously changes into an element with less energy. There are barriers. One of these natural atoms must gain energy, before it can finally go downhill to a lower energy. It is said that each of these atoms is stable.
It takes energy to move a lead atom over this barrier, before it can go downhill to gold. But, once it is over the barrier, you should get a lot of energy back. The process should produce more energy than it uses. In other words, it should be self-sustaining. Even though the process should be self-sustaining, it normally requires quite a lot of energy to start the ball rolling, so to speak.
So, I was concerned with supplying the energy to transform lead to gold. But a second problem occurred to me. What if my lead atoms went downhill and turned into something besides gold? It is not so bad to accidentally turn lead into silver. But turning lead into zinc could be quite embarrassing. So I began to form my theory that a lead atom needs an adjacent gold atom to "emulate." To carry the anthropomorphizing further, it seems natural for the lead atom to "want" to become a shiny gold atom. Luckily, this idea not only seems to change lead into gold, but at a much lower temperature than might be expected. The mysterious philospher's stone of the alchemists turns out to be gold itself.
So, I was concerned with supplying the energy to transform lead to gold. But a second problem occurred to me. What if my lead atoms went downhill and turned into something besides gold? It is not so bad to accidentally turn lead into silver. But turning lead into zinc could be quite embarrassing. So I began to form my theory that a lead atom needs an adjacent gold atom to "emulate." To carry the anthropomorphizing further, it seems natural for the lead atom to "want" to become a shiny gold atom. Luckily, this idea not only seems to change lead into gold, but at a much lower temperature than might be expected. The mysterious philospher's stone of the alchemists turns out to be gold itself.
At high temperatures, I thoroughly mix liquid lead and liquid gold. Some of the lead atoms change into gold. The remaining lead evaporates into a gas, which I later condense back into solid lead. I also solidify the liquid gold. In the end, I find that the mass of the gold has increased slightly (0.00037%), while the mass of the lead has decreased (0.00080%), after cleaning the lead coating off the inside of my glass equipment.
Repeating the experiment with the same gold and the same lead unfortunately results in almost no further change in the mass of the resulting gold. We have a state of diminishing returns. For some unknown reason, virgin gold would seem to be required.
I urgently need extensive funding to fine tune these very promising experiments. The government has surprisingly (perhaps not surprisingly) expressed no interest. So I am forced to turn to private investors. I estimate that they will at least double their investment in the next 12 months.
