For centuries, alchemists have dedicated life to an impossible dream: transform lead into gold. A dream made of secret formulas, arcane symbols and philosopher stones. Today, that dream has become reality. Not in the smoky basements of some medieval castle, but In the heart of the most advanced scientific laboratory on the planetCERN. And no,: it’s all thanks to nuclear physics.
During one of the experiments conducted to Large Hadron Colliderthe huge 27 km long underground ring on the border between France and Switzerland, a group of researchers managed to observe For the first time the direct and measurable birth of gold atoms. Everything happened in a fraction of a second, when Two lead ions launched at speeds close to that of light They touched themselves without clashing. A very rare, but very powerful event.
This “quasi-collision” generated an electromagnetic field so strong as to expel Exactly three protons from the core of the lead atom (which has 82). Result? A new atom with 79 protons. And 79 is the atomic number of gold.
Gold born from nothing: a handful of atoms at a time, but with an immense scientific value
The collisions observed fall into a category called Ultra -Peripheric collisionsin which the atoms do not collide frontally but touch themselves like two motorists who are avoided for a whisker. And precisely in these “touches”, nature shows its most spectacular side. The photons produced are thus loaded with energy that they change the structure of the atomic nucleitransforming – really – the lead into gold.
During the Run 2 of the LHC (2015-2018)they formed about 89,000 gold atoms per second. With the increased energy in the following Run 3the number has doubled: 178,000 atoms per second. An impressive figure, but still very far from what would be needed to get even a pepper. Just think that in A single gram of gold are more than 3,000 billion billion atoms.
In addition, these atoms last almost nothing. Just trained, travel at extreme speed e they are destroyed in no timebreaking into subatomic fragments. Therefore, no hope to collect them in ingots or transform them into jewelry. But what they are worth, is in knowledge.
How do you measure a scientific miracle? With the precision of Alice and the patience of the research
Behind this discovery there is not only the beauty of the experiment, but also an extraordinary precision in detecting the imperceptible. To deal with the measurement was the experiment Alice (A Large Ion Collider Experiment)designed to study the “swarm” of particles that emerges after nuclear collisions.
But in the case of these non-collision collisions, it was not a matter of analyzing thousands of particles: It was necessary to focus on a few, very small expulsions of protons and neutrons. And this is where a fundamental tool comes into play: i Zero Degree Calorimeters (Zdcs). Positioned far from the impact point, they managed to detect the events in which one, two or three protons were expelled from a lead nucleus. So it was possible to identify.
In short, a real Modern alchemymade of accelerators, particles and very fine tools. And no, he won’t make anyone richer. But more and more approaches us to understand the universe.
Gold does not serve to make jewels, but to reveal the deepest secrets of the subject
CERN is not about to open a jewelry, and nobody is trying to produce gold to sell. But this discovery has a gigantic importance: It allows us to understand how matter behaves when it is pushed to its extreme limits. These observations also help improve particles control systems and avoid expensive interruptions in future experiments.
In a sense, The dream of the alchemists was realized. Not with magic and mystery, but with science and patience. And perhaps, they too – in front of this discovery – would smile.
