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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

#291

Post by GuB-42 »

lloeki wrote: post #278
GuB-42 wrote: post #260

Note that the gold produced is gold-203, which is radioactive and decays into mercury-203 (also radioactive) in a minute. It is not the gold that we know of, which is gold-197. It is not the first transmutation of lead into gold by far. A transmutation from lead into gold-197 as been done in 1980. In all these cases, the gold is produced in quantities so tiny that its value as a precious metal is effectively zero.

> mercury-203 (also radioactive) What a horrible combination, mercury is poisonous enough by itself, it truly has no business being radioactive.

And if that's not enough, mercury-203 decays into thallium-203 (stable) with a half-life of 46.6 days. Thallium is even more toxic than mercury. You really don't want that gold-203.

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

#292

Post by eternauta3k »

steamrolled wrote: post #247

There's a lot of folks doing financial calculations in this thread, but keep in mind that this produced an unstable isotope of gold with a half-life measured in seconds. This has been done before. Even before you get to any economic calculus, you need to find a way to make that one stable isotope (out of about 40 known).

Just quickly sell it, lend the money with interest, and buy the gold back before it decays.

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

#293

Post by sltkr »

bruce511 wrote: post #279
HenryBemis wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely will mis-speak/mis-write, but my mathematic (also flawed) tells me that if Gold + 1 = Mercury, then Something + 1 = Gold, so we can find that "something" add 1 of the thingie, and booya!! gold!! (right?) (please read the above with silly humor) In a slightly more serious note, I remember listening to Elon in some podcast 1-2 years ago saying how they create new metals/alloys that nobody had created previ…

The whole concept of "turning lead into gold" is somewhat self defeating. Because turning lead into gold doesn't make lead as valuable as gold, it makes gold as valuable as lead. This has happened before. Aliminium used to be very scarce, and hence expensive. More expensive than silver. The top of the Washington monument is capped with aluminum. A new process was invented to extract aluminum. So scarcity disappeared…

> The top of the Washington monument is capped with aluminum.

Interesting. I was curious how large and expensive this was.

Apparently the tip weighed only 100 ounce, at a time the price was around $1.10 per ounce. Translating to 2025 dollars it would be around $36 per ounce, or $3,600 for the entire tip; much less than I expected, but still more expensive than the silver price today ($32.75 per ounce).

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

#294

Post by yyhhsj0521 »

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'…

> leading theory

hehe. Seriously though, why weren't people trying to turn iron or copper into gold? Why lead?

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

#295

Post by fHr »

sigilis wrote: post #73
zingababba wrote: post #23

Now do lead -> BTC

It's probably been done. Interestingly, the procedure involves bringing a device capable of colliding larger lead particles at lower velocities in the vicinity of someone with BTC. The actual collision is superfluous, and can sometimes be counterproductive.

whatever this guy is on, plz 1

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

#296

Post by codethief »

smolder wrote: post #243
oblio wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> particle accelerators, stars, and supernovae I have no clue about this stuff, but don't black holes also change matter... somehow? I mean, with all that gravity and stuff, crazy things must happen in there, right?

What happens inside a black hole is basically unknowable. We can only ponder the math which leads to ideas like space and time swapping roles once you cross the event horizon.[0] The only thing that comes out is hawking radiation, which is sort of like... half of nothing. [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=KePNhUJ2reI

> space and time swapping roles once you cross the event horizon

This is a common misunderstanding. Space and time don't swap roles. It's just that there's one rather popular coordinate system (Schwarzschild coordinates) whose coordinates t, x outside the horizon correspond to temporal (timelike) and spatial (spacelike) directions, respectively, and inside they correspond to spacelike and timelike directions. What we mean by "timelike" and "spacelike", however, does not change.

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

#297

Post by andrewflnr »

int_19h wrote: post #265
svachalek wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand contemporary physics, once matter crosses the event horizon it becomes part of the singularity. The singularity behaves as a single super-sized particle, so nothing happens inside. However I also have heard that many physicists don't believe that singularities actually exist, it's just the best mathematical model we have for physics that are too extreme for us to measure.

It does not become part of the singularity once it crosses the event horizon. The event horizon is actually rather uneventful as far as any particular piece of matter crossing it goes - it only means that this matter can never leave the boundary defined by the horizon, but it doesn't change it otherwise. The singularity (if it even exists) is the thing at the center of the black hole, far below its event horizon.

Technically yes. But also, things that enter the event horizon are compelled to hit the singularity on a very tight timescale. I forget the exact fraction of a second, but even for a supermassive hole it's very small. So it's not crazy to think of stuff entering the event horizon as immediately becoming part of the singularity (if it exists, as you mentioned. My bet is that it doesn't, but as far as our current understanding goes...)

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

#298

Post by smolder »

codethief wrote: post #296
smolder wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens inside a black hole is basically unknowable. We can only ponder the math which leads to ideas like space and time swapping roles once you cross the event horizon.[0] The only thing that comes out is hawking radiation, which is sort of like... half of nothing. [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=KePNhUJ2reI

> space and time swapping roles once you cross the event horizon This is a common misunderstanding. Space and time don't swap roles. It's just that there's one rather popular coordinate system (Schwarzschild coordinates) whose coordinates t, x outside the horizon correspond to temporal (timelike) and spatial (spacelike) directions, respectively, and inside they correspond to spacelike and timelike directions. What we…

That's what the video link (PBS SpaceTime) explains. Quite well, IMO.

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

#299

Post by andrewflnr »

dheera wrote: post #266
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.

I hope that this can one day be scaled, even if 100 years into the future. I do not want gold to be prized as a store of value. It is too useful as a material (inert, doesn't oxidize, food safe) that it would be vastly beneficial to society if it were possible to produce in limitless quantities. Pick something that isn't useful as a material to be a store of value.

Basically, pick something with no value as a store of value. If we want to do that, we can just stick with fiat currency in a database. No reason to pick a material.

If we want a physical store of value, I actually think something of use that can easily be subdivided and combined is ideal. It doesn't even have to be as valuable as gold is today, this makes just as much sense if gold is cheap and plentiful. The natural inflation from creating more of it even helps cut down hoarding. It just gets harder to carry around enough to buy coffee (which of course brings us back to databases).

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

#300

Post by linotype »

c22 wrote: post #209
linotype wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK Elon. Edit: this was a joke, in case it wasn’t clear.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that most of your downvotes are from people who didn't find your joke funny, not from people who believe you sincerely but incorrectly identified the parent poster.

shrug can’t please everybody.
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