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ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

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Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#121

Post by xanderlewis »

jstanley wrote: post #111
lovecg wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analogy I heard was that if you take a golf ball and enlarge it to the size of the Earth, the atoms in the enlarged golf ball would be about the size of the original golf ball.

It took me a while to understand this comment, because I imagined that scaling up a golf ball would involve creating new atoms, but what you said only makes sense if you are scaling up the individual atoms. What you're saying is that the ratio of the size of an atom to the size of a golf ball is approximately the same as the ratio of the size of a golf ball to the size of the earth. I'm surprised atoms are so big, I…

> I'm surprised atoms are so big, I would have guessed much smaller.

Me too. Perhaps what we should realise is not how big atoms are, but how small we are. I wonder if life can be sustained at larger scales. Could we have galaxy-sized lifeforms that make us look like bacteria?

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#122

Post by baruz »

frainfreeze wrote: post #91
Geee wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avogadro was a weird looking guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amadeo_Avogadro.png

Aren't we all a bit weird looking? I'm more entertained that URL was already in my browser history

Huh. It was grayed out for me as well, but I have no recollection of having had to look up moles, Avogadro, or even chemistry-related topics in Wikipedia for at least several months.

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#123

Post by Vox_Leone »

omnee wrote: post #42

The relevant part: "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)." Just need to scale it by trillions to make 1 ounce, but transmutation of lead to gold - the dream of many alchemists - is now just a by product of particle accelerators.

>but transmutation of lead to gold - the dream of many alchemists - is now just a by product of particle accelerators.

The ultimate philosopher's stone.

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#124

Post by herodoturtle »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #46
John23832 wrote: post #27

Random question. Historically, why have Lead and Gold been so closely linked? Why did alchemist focus on turning lead into gold (and not start with iron, or a rock like quartz)? Is it just because they're two heavy soft metals?

The leading theory at the time was that metals were grown in the earth, starting as base metals and transmuting over time/under certain conditions into the higher metals, eventually ending up at gold, which they thought was the end point because it never tarnished. It was actually not a terrible theory given the information they had, all metals come from the ground after all - the idea of turning lead into gold wasn'…

[flagged]

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#126

Post by keepamovin »

Using this kind of high energy light, here emitted by the near-miss collisions themselves, might be a way to reduce radioactivity in contaminated sites. The photos could knock out a few protons and neutrons transforming the Uranium or Plutonium or whatever into less radioactive nuclei.

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#127

Post by cenamus »

bgirard wrote: post #84
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ran the numbers. The LHC would break even if the price of gold was $48 trillion trillion per ounce.

Only if the LHC doesn't quire gold to operate. If you're using ICs and components that have some gold in them and they need maintenance, you consume more than you produce.

Can still recover the gold from old parts though.

Quite fitting actually, alchemists scamming investors with needing a "starting" amount to get their reaction going

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#128

Post by genghisjahn »

HPsquared wrote: post #94
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ran the numbers. The LHC would break even if the price of gold was $48 trillion trillion per ounce.

You'd probably need to build another facility to actually extract the gold.

Sounds like a factorio expansion pack.

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#129

Post by phkahler »

omnee wrote: post #42

The relevant part: "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)." Just need to scale it by trillions to make 1 ounce, but transmutation of lead to gold - the dream of many alchemists - is now just a by product of particle accelerators.

>> Just need to scale it by trillions to make 1 ounce, but transmutation of lead to gold - the dream of many alchemists - is now just a by product of particle accelerators.

Quick, somebody call nVidia!! They already integrate accelerators into their GPUs and they have scaling better than Moore's law!!

Re: ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC

#130

Post by 55555 »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #46
John23832 wrote: post #27

Random question. Historically, why have Lead and Gold been so closely linked? Why did alchemist focus on turning lead into gold (and not start with iron, or a rock like quartz)? Is it just because they're two heavy soft metals?

The leading theory at the time was that metals were grown in the earth, starting as base metals and transmuting over time/under certain conditions into the higher metals, eventually ending up at gold, which they thought was the end point because it never tarnished. It was actually not a terrible theory given the information they had, all metals come from the ground after all - the idea of turning lead into gold wasn'…

Today we turn carbon into diamonds by doing exactly that! Very interesting, thanks for sharing this information. I had no idea.
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