Abstract
Transmutation of a base metal into gold (symbol Au from the Latin Aurum) is possible not through the alchemist’s chemistry, but by nuclear transmutation as demonstrated by the American Glenn Seaborg (1912–1999) and his collaborators who turned bismuth into gold using a particle accelerator at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California in 1981. Turning lead into gold by such an approach is difficult and definitely not a profitable venture - the reverse nuclear transmutation is easier but even less valuable.
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Notes
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USGS, Mineral Commodity Summary, Gold. 2018.
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Baker, I. (2018). Gold. In: Fifty Materials That Make the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78766-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78766-4_15
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