this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC (www.home.cern)
submitted 1 month ago by NONE_dc@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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The ALICE analysis shows that, during Run 2 of the LHC (2015–2018), about 86 billion gold nuclei were created at the four major experiments. In terms of mass, this corresponds to just 29 picograms (2.9 ×10-11 g). [...] While the dream of medieval alchemists has technically come true, their hopes of riches have once again been dashed.

I mean, we still can't turn a ring of lead into a ring of gold, but this is really neat.

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[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

Also we've basically made the dreams of alchemists a reality. Still in the proof of concept stage but it's now safe to say the idea of turning less valuable stuff into gold isn't as crazy as it initially sounds.