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essentially run rampant, while they were using lead as a shield in

nuclear power plants harness the a reactor and later found it had
atomic energy to heat water. changed to gold.
One of the dreams of early
chemists was to figure out how to

transform lead into gold. Lead has
82 protons in its core whereas gold
contains only 79. So conceivably
all you’d need to do is remove

three protons and presto! So how
do you do that?

Since protons can’t be stripped off
with a chemical reaction, you need
to smack it hard with something to

knock off just the right amount.
Lead, however, if a very stable
element, so it’s going to require a
lot of energy to remove three

protons. How about a linear
accelerator?

In a linear accelerator, a charged
particle moves through a series of

tubes that are charged by electrical

and/or magnetic fields. The
accelerated particle smacks the
target, knocking free protons or

neutrons and making a new

element (or isotope).

Glenn Seaborg, 1951 Nobel
Laureate in Chemistry, actually
succeeded in transmuting a tiny

quantity of lead into gold in 1980.
And in 1972, Soviet physicists near

Lake Baikal in Siberia in a nuclear
research lab accidentally turned
lead into gold during their tests –

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