Latest news with #HadronCollider
Gizmodo
14-05-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Physicists Turned Lead Into Gold—for a Fraction of a Second
Hundreds of years ago, alchemists dreamed of chrysopoeia: turning lead into gold. Scientists at the research institute CERN have achieved this medieval fantasy—if only for a fraction of a second. Physicists used the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), to eject three protons from lead atoms—effectively transforming them into gold atoms. Though this isn't the first time scientists have created artificial gold, the researchers used a new mechanism involving near-miss collisions. 'The present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally,' Uliana Dmitrieva, a physicist from the ALICE collaboration at CERN, said in an institute statement. ALICE stands for A Large Ion Collider Experiment, and is one of a number of experiments at CERN's LHC. Dmitrieva did not participate in the study detailing the new mechanism, published Wednesday in the Physical Review Journals. Elements are defined by the number of protons in the nuclei of their atoms. Lead nuclei, for example, have 82 protons each, while gold nuclei have 79. The recent study saw lead nuclei zoom through the Large Hadron Collider at the mind-boggling rate of 99.999993% of the speed of light. The nuclei's electromagnetic fields warped, creating a brief flash of light particles called photons. It was the interaction between these photons and the lead nuclei—not collisions, which give the collider its name, but near-misses—that caused the nuclei to shed some protons and neutrons in a process called electromagnetic dissociation. If the lead atoms lost zero protons, they remained lead. If they lost one, they turned into thallium; if they lost two, they turned into mercury; and if they lost three, they turned into gold. The near-miss collisions successfully produced all three heavy metals, though the gold nuclei almost immediately broke apart—meaning gold existed for less than a second. While the latest experiment produced nearly twice as much gold as previous attempts, the fleeting quantity is still trillions of times less than what a goldsmith would need to make even a single piece of jewelry. 'The results also test and improve theoretical models of electromagnetic dissociation which, beyond their intrinsic physics interest, are used to understand and predict beam losses that are a major limit on the performance of the LHC and future colliders,' explained John Jowett, an accelerator physicist from the ALICE collaboration who did not participate in the study. While medieval alchemists might be disappointed to learn that the study reveals no way to generate piles of riches, the research joins a host of other achievements accomplished with the LHC. Perhaps the most famous of those is the discovery of the Higgs boson particle in 2012, whose existence confirms the theoretical presence of a new field that gives mass to other particles, like electrons. It remains to be seen what new discovery the world's most powerful particle accelerator will reveal next.
The Hindu
13-05-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Is it possible to turn lead into gold?
In India and other parts of the world, some ancient natural philosophers practised an enterprise called alchemy. It was in some ways an early form of chemistry, but guided by less-than-scientific ideas of the time. One form of alchemy was concerned with converting base metals like lead into gold. We know today that doing this requires us to change the composition of the nucleus of the lead atom, which is not easy. In a new study, scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe have reported turning lead atoms into gold atoms for a fraction of a second. The LHC is famous for accelerating protons to high energies and smashing billions of them head on. But in the study, the researchers energised heavy lead nuclei and had them pass close to each other, without colliding, giving rise to so-called ultra-peripheral collisions. Even though the nuclei don't physically touch, they interact via their powerful electromagnetic fields, which caused some of the nuclei to break up. The team found that when a lead nucleus emitted protons, it essentially became a gold nucleus. Also, current theoretical models could only roughly predict these emissions: the researchers said this was because their models tended to underestimate how often one or two protons were emitted. In other words, scientists have room to improve their understanding of how these electromagnetic breakups work.
Economic Times
12-05-2025
- Science
- Economic Times
300 years after alchemy failed, CERN scientists finally turn lead into gold
Centuries after alchemists sought transmutation, CERN scientists have turned lead into gold using the Large Hadron Collider. By colliding lead ions at near-light speed, they briefly created gold atoms, demonstrating nuclear stability limits. While the amount was minuscule and fleeting, this achievement fulfills an ancient dream through modern physics, furthering our understanding of matter's fundamental processes. Researchers involved in the ALICE experiment at CERN announced that they had successfully transformed lead nuclei into gold through high-speed, near-miss collisions of lead ions. (Image: The ALICE Time Projection Chamber, CERN) Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads FAQs Can I make gold from lead? How is gold made? How to make pure gold? How do scientists create gold? In the early 1700s, the King of Poland, August the Strong, locked a young alchemist in a laboratory with one simple command: make gold. The alchemist, Johann Friedrich Böttger, tried every trick in the book — but failed. More than 300 years later, scientists at CERN have done what Böttger could not: they've turned lead into gold , for a very brief scientific transmutation didn't happen in a smoky laboratory, but inside the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Researchers working on the ALICE experiment at CERN announced they had successfully transformed lead nuclei into gold during high-speed, near-miss collisions of lead lead ions race around the LHC at nearly the speed of light, they occasionally graze past each other without crashing head-on. The powerful electromagnetic fields around these ions interact intensely. In rare cases, this causes a lead nucleus to emit three protons, which briefly changes it into a gold nucleus — the isotope gold-197 Between 2015 and 2018, CERN's detectors recorded around 86 billion gold atoms created this way. But these atoms existed for just microseconds before decaying or transforming into something else. The amount of gold produced was vanishingly small — about 29 trillionths of a the poetic value, such research helps physicists explore the limits of nuclear stability and the processes that shape matter in extreme cosmic environments, like neutron star than a quirky nod to medieval alchemy, this experiment shows how modern science can answer the mysteries that once baffled ancient thinkers. Böttger never made gold, but his failure led to the discovery of European porcelain. Now, centuries later, his dream has been realized — if only for a moment — not by magic, but by age of alchemy may be long gone, but we never knew what this discovery could lead CERN to in exploring the universe's building gold can be made from lead, but only through nuclear transmutation at facilities like CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Although this fulfills the ancient alchemists' dream, it is extremely inefficient, costly, and impractical for producing usable gold, which is used mainly for scientific research is formed primarily through cosmic processes like supernova nucleosynthesis, neutron star collisions, and magnetar flares, where intense heat and pressure create heavy elements via rapid neutron capture. On Earth, gold forms through hydrothermal processes, where hot mineral-rich fluids deposit gold in rock veins, and through placer deposits from erosion and gold is made by refining impure gold through chemical methods like aqua regia or electrolytic refining, which remove impurities to produce 24-karat gold with up to 99.99% create gold by changing the atomic structure of other elements, such as mercury, platinum, or lead, through nuclear reactions or high-energy particle collisions, like those in the Large Hadron Collider, which can transmute these elements into gold nuclei. However, the process is highly inefficient and mostly experimental.
News18
12-05-2025
- Science
- News18
Scientists Have Created Gold From Lead In The CERN Large Hadron Collider
Last Updated: In the LHC, the world's largest collider, scientists accelerated lead nuclei to 99.999993% the speed of light, sending them hurtling through vacuum-sealed tunnels In a scene that feels torn from the pages of medieval alchemy, the world's most advanced physics laboratory has managed to achieve what mystics once only dreamed of – transforming one element into another, specifically, lead into gold. But this modern-day transmutation was not the result of ancient spells or bubbling cauldrons. It happened inside the 27-kilometre ring of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, on the outskirts of Geneva, during a series of high-energy experiments conducted between 2015 and 2018. According to a recently published paper in Physical Review C, scientists during this period succeeded in producing an estimated 86 billion gold nuclei, albeit for a fleeting instant. That's roughly 29 picograms of gold – a trillionth of a gram – far too small to mint a coin or even to see, but a dazzling scientific feat nonetheless. The process reads like a sci-fi interpretation of the periodic table. Lead and gold are neighbours on the elemental chart, with gold containing 79 protons and lead 82. Theoretically, by knocking a few protons and neutrons off a lead atom, you could arrive at gold. However, this transformation requires titanic forces that no ancient alchemist could dream of. Enter the LHC, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. There, scientists accelerated lead nuclei to 99.999993% the speed of light, sending them hurtling through vacuum-sealed tunnels. When two such nuclei passed close to one another, their immense electromagnetic fields clashed, generating an intense burst of photons. These photon pulses were powerful enough to destabilise the nuclei, ejecting protons and neutrons in a process known as photodisintegration. In this atomic mayhem, some of the remaining particles briefly reassembled into gold nuclei – exquisitely short-lived and impossibly rare. Most were destroyed within moments as they collided with the LHC's walls, but their formation was detected thanks to the highly sensitive Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) in the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector. The ZDC measured the emission of nuclear fragments and converted this invisible alchemy into quantifiable data. And gold wasn't the only element born in the chaos. The collisions also produced mercury (80 protons) and thallium (81 protons) – elements just shy of lead on the periodic table. While these were more abundant than gold in the LHC experiments, it is gold's symbolic and scientific significance that captured imaginations. This achievement may not herald a new age of gold mining in laboratories – the amount created is cosmically small and extraordinarily expensive. But it provides valuable insights into the nuclear processes that occur in extreme environments, such as supernovae or neutron star collisions, where nature might perform similar transmutations on a far grander scale. Watch India Pakistan Breaking News on CNN-News18. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from geopolitics to diplomacy and global trends. Stay informed with the latest world news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! First Published:
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Witness Lead Literally Turn Into Gold in The Large Hadron Collider
For a while, in the Middle Ages, there was a real craze for trying to turn unassuming lead into pure, gleaming gold. Perhaps those ancient alchemists should have been building a particle collider. According to a new paper, CERN's Large Hadron Collider produced about 86 billion gold nuclei from high-speed lead nuclei during the facility's second run, between 2015 and 2018. This is not actually much gold – mere trillionths of a gram. Nor does it last very long – just fractions of a second. But what's really cool here is the way physicists quantified the gold production: by counting the number of protons accompanying neutrons involved in the lead interactions using the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector's zero degree calorimeters (ZDCs). "Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyze the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally," explains physicist Uliana Dmitrieva of the ALICE collaboration at CERN. On the periodic table, lead and gold are separated by just a few spaces. Gold has 79 protons and lead has 82, so you can essentially knock a few protons (plus some neutrons) off a lead atom and end up with a gold atom. The process is analogous to the chrysopoeia that alchemists attempted, but practically, it's not quite that simple. You need a particle collider that can accelerate particles to energies high enough to do the knocking. In short, it's extremely energy-intensive, and requires very expensive, highly specialized equipment. If you want gold, it's probably the least efficient way to get it, in terms of effort, cost, and resources. But lead is a popular choice for particle collider experiments, resulting in the very brief production of gold as a by-product. The ALICE collaboration has now quantified the gold production not from lead nuclei smacking into each other, but from near misses as they fly around at 99.999993 percent of the speed of light in the Large Hadron Collider. At these speeds, the lead nucleus, with its 82 charged protons, flattens the electromagnetic field in the collider perpendicular to the direction in which it is traveling, generating a pulse of photons when two lead nuclei pass each other closely enough. An interaction with a photon can then wobble the interior structure of a lead nucleus, causing it to eject neutrons and protons. It's not just gold that emerges from this process. The removal of nucleons can produce a thallium nucleus with 123 neutrons and 81 protons; or a mercury nucleus with 121 neutrons and 80 protons. Using ALICE's ZDCs to count loose neutrons with one, two, or three protons, the collaboration quantified the production of all three elements during the same run of the Large Hadron Collider. Thallium and mercury are produced in far greater quantities than gold, but the latter is currently produced at a maximum rate of around 89,000 nuclei per second, from lead-lead collisions near the ALICE collision point in the collider. For the particle accelerator's second run, the amount of gold produced was minuscule – just 29 picograms, or trillionths of a gram. That's the scale on which bacteria are measured. There are sextillions of atoms in just a single gram of gold. In addition, the high-speed gold nuclei then smash against the sides of the Large Hadron Collider and disintegrate in a shower of protons, neutrons, and electrons almost as soon as they form. The medieval alchemists would have been deeply disappointed. We're not, though. This is really fascinating science. Not only can scientists hurl atoms at each other at almost light speed, they can then determine the changes those atoms undergo as a result of the hurling. That's far beyond the wildest dreams of our medieval forebears. "It is impressive to see that our detectors can handle head-on collisions producing thousands of particles," says particle physicist Marco van Leeuwen, of Utrecht University, spokesperson for the ALICE collaboration, "while also being sensitive to collisions where only a few particles are produced at a time, enabling the study of rare electromagnetic 'nuclear transmutation' processes." The findings have been published in Physical Review C. Physicists Capture First-Ever Images of Free-Range Atoms Breakthrough Gravity Explanation Is a Step Closer to 'Theory of Everything' Mathematician Finds Solution to One of The Oldest Problems in Algebra
