A photo of the Large Hadron Collider’s ALICE detector. (Image credit: Ronald Patrickvia Getty Images)
So, like, medieval alchemists were totally obsessed with turning lead into gold, right? They were all into this concept called chrysopoeia. But, get this, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, near Geneva, are now saying that maybe instead of using the philosopher’s stone, they should just use a particle accelerator. Crazy, right?
During the LHC’s second run, from 2015 to 2018, a whopping 86 billion gold nuclei were created by smashing together lead atoms at a speed of 99.999993% the speed of light. That’s like super fast, dude. The result? A teeny tiny amount of gold — like, only 29 trillionths of a gram. But even though it’s a tiny amount, it’s enough to collide with the beam pipe and break apart in, like, a split second. And get this, the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) collaboration’s detectors actually caught this whole gold-making process in action. How cool is that?
The alchemists back in the day thought that lead and gold were similar in density because lead was “sick” and needed to be turned into gold to be cured. Obviously, they were way off, but they weren’t completely wrong. I mean, lead and gold are pretty close on the periodic table. Gold has 79 protons, which is only three less than lead. So, like, when powerful particle accelerators collide lead atoms, they only need to knock off three protons (plus some neutrons) to make gold. Knock off one or two protons, and you get thallium or mercury instead. It’s like a weird science experiment, man.
To figure out how much gold is being produced inside the LHC, the physicists used ALICE’s super sensitive Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs). These things measure all the protons and neutrons flying out of the billions of particle collisions happening inside the collider every second. The results showed that even though gold isn’t made as often as thallium or mercury, it’s still being produced at a rate of around 89,000 nuclei per second during the experiment’s third run. That’s like double the amount produced during the previous run thanks to the third run having more energy. It’s like a particle physics gold rush, man.
I’m not really sure why this matters, but the present analysis is the first to actually detect and study the production of gold at the LHC experimentally. So, like, that’s pretty cool, I guess. Also, these results help test and improve theoretical models of electromagnetic dissociation. Apparently, these models are used to understand and predict beam losses that affect the performance of the LHC and future colliders. Who knew particle physics could be so complicated, right?
So, like, in conclusion, the LHC is basically turning lead into gold, which is pretty mind-blowing if you ask me. Who knew smashing atoms together at crazy speeds could create something as valuable as gold? It’s like science fiction come to life, man. And hey, if this is what particle physics is all about, count me in for more gold-making experiments. Bring on the bling, LHC!
Not really sure why this matters, but I feel like this article was pretty fun to write. Who knew particle physics could be so fascinating?
