It's been reported that Glenn Seaborg, 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, succeeded in transmuting a minute quantity of lead (although he may have started with bismuth, another stable metal often substituted for lead) into gold in 1980.
Alchemists claimed to be able to make gold (a rare metal) from lead (a very common metal). They weren't successful, but today it is possible to change lead into gold.
Share. In Greek mythology, everything King Midas touched turned into gold. It was called “the Midas touch,” a term used to describe a knack for making money in every business venture or greed. Midas' story is a testimonial to humanity's obsession for this special metal.
The alchemists were never successful in changing lead into gold, but modern nuclear physics can accomplish this task. Lead is subjected to nuclear bombardment in a particle accelerator. A small amount of gold can be obtained by this process.
Unfortunately lead is a very difficult element to make lose protons and for it to lose 3 of them (to change it into gold) requires huge amounts of energy, so much so that it would cost a lot more to turn lead into gold than the resulting gold would actually be worth!
Adding or removing protons from a nucleus are types of nuclear reactions. As such, no series of chemical reactions can ever create gold. Chemical reactions change the number and shape of the electrons in an atom but leave the nucleus of the atom unchanged.
Gold. Chrysopoeia, the artificial production of gold, is the symbolic goal of alchemy. Such transmutation is possible in particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, although the production cost is currently many times the market price of gold.
It is clear why alchemy was doomed to fail: it was based on a misunderstanding of basic chemistry and physics.
Indian alchemists and Chinese alchemists made contributions to Eastern varieties of the art. Alchemy is still practiced today by a few, and alchemist characters still appear in recent fictional works and video games.
No, no one was successful. But along the way many made real chemical discoveries. The history of alchemy is the history of early chemistry. At Johns Hopkins University, chemist Lawrence Principe is recreating these historical steps and pushing the boundaries of what alchemists' skeptics thought possible.
Group 11, by modern IUPAC numbering, is a group of chemical elements in the periodic table, consisting of copper (Cu), silver (Ag), and gold (Au), and roentgenium (Rg), although no chemical experiments have yet been carried out to confirm that roentgenium behaves like the heavier homologue to gold.
All of the gold that's deposited in our planet was formed during the explosions of stars and collisions of asteroids, and eventually found its way to earth over time. Today, gold is one of the most valuable precious metals and rarest natural minerals.
Gold Can't Be Destroyed, only Dissolved
As it stands, it is not possible to destroy gold on a molecular level with any naturally occurring substance on earth. Pure gold is virtually indestructible. It will not corrode, rust or tarnish, and fire cannot destroy it.
Gold is naturally occurring. When heated currents of fluid circulate under the Earth through rocks, it melts and picks up gold and other metals. Chemical differences in the fluids cause them to separate to a certain extent, creating concentrations in the form of lode deposits.
(There is a rumor of a Soviet nuclear research facility, sometimes identified as the “Soviet nuclear center of Lake Baikal,” where in 1972, an experimental reactor lead shielding was found to have been transmuted to gold. Unfortunately there is little in the way of documentation to support this story.)
Plenty of elements on the periodic table can be found in the human body, and gold is no exception. An adult human body weighing 70 kg contains about 0.2 milligrams of gold.
The Fall Of Alchemy: c.1600-1700AD
In addition, the new physical sciences were gaining impetus with the noble classes. These sciences were based upon the theories of alchemy, but discarded the concepts of magic in favour of reason and logic. They eventually led to what are known today as physics and chemistry.
Robert Boyle published “The Sceptical Chymist” at the end of the 17th century. This book disproved the idea that matter was made of a mix of some or all of the four elements; earth, fire, air and wind. Instead, Boyle used new equipment and experiments to prove his theories about the world.
Modern alchemy. The possibility of chemical gold making was not conclusively disproved by scientific evidence until the 19th century. As rational a scientist as Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) had thought it worthwhile to experiment with it. The official attitude toward alchemy in the 16th to 18th century was ambivalent.
Is alchemy possible in real life? Alchemy is possible in real life, but the reasons behind it are far different from what original alchemists thought. The original alchemists thought they could spiritually bring elements to perfection, turning them into gold.
Isaac Newton, World's Most Famous Alchemist.
Alchemy is best described as a form of 'proto-science' rather than a distinct science in its own right. This is because, although many observations and theories made by alchemists were based on scientific fact, they often explained these in terms of 'magic' or divine intervention.
A 2009 NASA mission—in which a rocket slammed into the moon and a second spacecraft studied the blast—revealed that the lunar surface contains an array of compounds, including gold, silver, and mercury, according to PBS.
What to do: Hold the magnet up to the gold. If it's real gold it will not stick to the magnet. (Fun fact: Real gold is not magnetic.) Fake gold, on the other hand, will stick to the magnet.
Why can't gold be produced in the lab like diamonds? Gold is an element while diamonds are a form of an element know as Carbon. You can make diamonds from Carbon, however one cannot make Gold.