Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland have produced small amounts of gold – by accident.
Professor Ulrik Egede from Monash University’s School of Physics and Astronomy explains how it happened in an article published by The Conversation.
Comments attributable to Professor Egede:
“The gold was created while scientists were smashing lead atoms into each other at almost the speed of light to mimic the state of the Universe around the time of the Big Bang. The electromagnetic forces generated when an atom’s nucleus collides can cause parts of the nucleus to break away. The gold was created when exactly three protons left the lead nucleus.
“Unfortunately for jewellery enthusiasts, there is not even a remote chance this method could be used to develop gold in any usable quantity. The amount created is so small that the individual atoms are counted. These scientists created 29 trillionths of a gram, so would take billions of years to create just a single gram of gold this way.
“However, this accidental alchemy is important for the understanding of how particle beams behave in accelerators. Improving this can help physicists to run their experiments in a more efficient way in the future.”