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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.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
How scientists accidentally turned lead into gold
Modern-day science accidentally achieved what medieval alchemists dreamed of doing by turning lead into the tiniest bit of gold. Scientists with CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, said they confirmed the change of lead into gold using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, which can beam particles at close to the speed of light before they collide, but more often miss without touching. See It: Metal Detector Leads To Silver Surprise Of Ancient Romanian Coins For Man On Nature Walk According to CERN, the brief and tiny transformation to gold happened through "near-miss collisions" between lead nuclei in the LHC. The LHC contains four detectors, including one known as A Large Ion Collider Experiment, or ALICE. The team said ALICE measured the production of gold when they counted the number of photon-nucleus interactions resulting in the emission of zero, one, two and three protons, accompanied by at least one neutron. These are associated with the production of lead, thallium, mercury and gold. The results showed that Run 2 of the LHC, between 2015 and 2018, produced gold at a maximum rate of about 89,000 nuclei per second from lead–lead collisions at the ALICE detector collision point. "Gold nuclei emerge from the collision with very high energy and hit the LHC beam pipe or collimators at various points downstream, where they immediately fragment into single protons, neutrons and other particles," officials at CERN said. "The gold exists for just a tiny fraction of a second." The amount of gold produced wouldn't make anyone rich because it was trillions of times less than what would be needed to make a single piece of jewelry. In terms of mass, the amount of gold was about 29 picograms (2.9 ×10-11 g). One picogram is one-trillionth of a gram. Alaska Town Sees Last Sunset Until August As 84 Days Of Daylight Begins Still, the long-awaited achievement is something to be celebrated for these tiny interactions and what the powerful instruments can detect. "Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally," Uliana Dmitrieva, of the ALICE collaboration, said in a statement. In May, the LHC at CERN began its third operating period, known as Run 3, marking the start of the 2025 campaign to unfold new science in particle article source: How scientists accidentally turned lead into gold
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists turn lead into gold for 1st time, but only for a split second
In a breakthrough that would make medieval alchemists envious, scientists at Europe's Large Hadron Collider have successfully transformed lead into gold, producing 89,000 atoms per second. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a giant particle accelerator that smashes atoms together at super-high speeds. Scientists there have found a way to knock three tiny particles called protons out of lead atoms, turning them into gold atoms. The team behind this discovery, called the ALICE collaboration, used a unique way to create gold. Instead of crashing lead atoms head-on, they looked at what happens when the atoms just barely miss each other. Researchers explained that when this happens, powerful electromagnetic fields around the atoms can cause them to change into different elements. MORE: Scientists solve mystery of 'zombie' volcano displaying signs of eruption for decades "It's impressive that our detectors can handle both major collisions that create thousands of particles and these smaller events that make just a few particles at a time," Marco Van Leeuwen, who leads the ALICE project, said in a press release. During one period of experiments from 2015 to 2018, the scientists created about 86 billion gold atoms. That sounds like a lot, but when you add up all that gold, scientists said it only weighs about 29 picograms, which is less than a trillionth of a gram. You'd need trillions of times more to make even a tiny piece of jewelry. The machine can create about 89,000 gold atoms every second, but each atom only exists for a tiny fraction of a second before breaking apart. Recent upgrades to the machine have almost doubled the amount of gold it can make, but it's still far from practical use. MORE: FAA launches emergency task force to ensure safety flying in and out of Newark According to Uliana Dmitrieva, a scientist for the ALICE collaboration, this is the first time scientists have been able to detect and study gold production at the LHC in this way. "Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally," Dmitrieva said in the release. John Jowett, another scientist on the team, said that these experiments help them understand how particles behave, which is important for improving the LHC and building future particle colliders. "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," Jowett said in the release. Scientists turn lead into gold for 1st time, but only for a split second originally appeared on
13-05-2025
- Science
Scientists turn lead into gold for 1st time, but only for a split second
In a breakthrough that would make medieval alchemists envious, scientists at Europe's Large Hadron Collider have successfully transformed lead into gold, producing 89,000 atoms per second. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a giant particle accelerator that smashes atoms together at super-high speeds. Scientists there have found a way to knock three tiny particles called protons out of lead atoms, turning them into gold atoms. The team behind this discovery, called the ALICE collaboration, used a unique way to create gold. Instead of crashing lead atoms head-on, they looked at what happens when the atoms just barely miss each other. Researchers explained that when this happens, powerful electromagnetic fields around the atoms can cause them to change into different elements. "It's impressive that our detectors can handle both major collisions that create thousands of particles and these smaller events that make just a few particles at a time," Marco Van Leeuwen, who leads the ALICE project, said in a press release. How much gold did they make? During one period of experiments from 2015 to 2018, the scientists created about 86 billion gold atoms. That sounds like a lot, but when you add up all that gold, scientists said it only weighs about 29 picograms, which is less than a trillionth of a gram and about an ounce. You'd need trillions of times more to make even a tiny piece of jewelry. The machine can create about 89,000 gold atoms every second, but each atom only exists for a tiny fraction of a second before breaking apart. Recent upgrades to the machine have almost doubled the amount of gold it can make, but it's still far from practical use. According to Uliana Dmitrieva, a scientist for the ALICE collaboration, this is the first time scientists have been able to detect and study gold production at the LHC in this way. "Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally," Dmitrieva said in the release. The research isn't just about making gold John Jowett, another scientist on the team, said that these experiments help them understand how particles behave, which is important for improving the LHC and building future particle colliders. "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," Jowett said in the release.
Scientific American
09-05-2025
- Science
- Scientific American
Physicists Turn Lead into Gold—For a Fraction of a Second
2 min read Scientists at Europe's famous particle collider briefly created gold ions from lead in a modern twist on the alchemical goal By & Nature magazine The dream of seventeenth-century alchemists has been realized by physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), who have turned lead into gold — albeit for only a fraction of a second and at tremendous cost. The not-so-mysterious transmutation happened at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory, near Geneva, Switzerland, where the multi-billion-dollar LHC smashes together ions of lead for a portion of each experimental run. Early chemists hoped to turn abundant lead into precious gold. But differences in proton number between the elements (82 for lead and 79 for gold) made that impossible by chemical means. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. CERN researchers achieved the feat by aiming beams of lead at each other, travelling at close to the speed of light. The ions occasionally glance past each other, rather than hit head on. When this happens, the intense electromagnetic field around an ion can create a pulse of energy that triggers an oncoming lead nucleus to eject three protons — turning it into gold. The LHC's ALICE experiment filtered out these instances of transmutation from the wider collision debris. In an analysis published on 7 May in Physical Review Journals, the team calculated that between 2015 and 2018, collisions at the LHC created 86 billion gold nuclei — around 29 trillionths of a gram. Most of the unstable, fast-moving gold atoms would have lasted around 1 microsecond before smashing into experimental apparatus or breaking into other particles. Gold is being made any time lead beams are collided at the LHC, but ALICE is the only experiment with the detector set up to spot this process. The analysis 'is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally', says Uliana Dmitrieva, a physicist and member of the ALICE collaboration. Another CERN accelerator called the SPS observed lead changing into gold from 2002 to 2004, says Jiangyong Jia, a physicist at Stony Brook University in New York. But the latest experiments are at higher energy, have a much higher probability of creating gold and make for much cleaner observations, he adds. CERN researchers have no plans to take up gold-making as a side hustle, but say that better understanding how photons can change nuclei will help them to improve the LHC's performance. 'Understanding such processes is crucial for controlling beam quality and stability,' says Jia.
