Archive · 20 May 2025
Scientists at CERN Temporarily Transform Lead into Gold
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) did something amazing: they briefly turned lead into gold.
Using powerful machines, they made lead atoms gently bump against each other in a specific way.
This caused the lead atoms to change into gold, but the gold only lasted for a tiny fraction of a second.
The amount of gold created was extremely small.
While this won't make anyone rich, it's a big step in understanding how atoms work and helps improve future particle experiments.
Scientists at CERN's LHC transformed lead into gold using near-miss collisions.
The experiment, conducted by the ALICE collaboration, produced gold atoms at a rate of 89,000 per second.
Each gold atom existed for only a fraction of a second.
The total gold produced between 2015 and 2018 was 29 picograms.
The research is significant for fine-tuning electromagnetic dissociation models, aiding in improving the LHC.
- Who
- Scientists at CERN's ALICE collaboration.
- What
- Scientists converted lead into gold.
- When
- Between 2015 and 2018 (for the main experiment)
- Where
- CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
- Why
- To advance the understanding of particle manipulation and atomic science, and fine-tune models for improving LHC and future colliders.
- Experiment Location
- CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
- Collaboration
- ALICE
- Process
- Lead atoms barely missing each other
- Gold Production Rate
- 89,000 atoms per second
- Total Gold (2015-2018)
- 29 picograms