Is alchemy real? Physicists turn lead into gold using the Large Hadron Collider

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FILE - A model of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel is seen in the CERN (European Organization For Nuclear Research) visitors' center June 16, 2008 in Geneva-Meyrin, Switzerland.  (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

At CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the dream of alchemists has become a fleeting reality. Physicists with the ALICE collaboration have successfully turned lead into gold — not through magic or chemistry, but by smashing lead nuclei together at near-light speeds. The experiment produced gold atoms by causing the nuclei to eject three protons through a process called electromagnetic dissociation.

When two lead ions narrowly miss a head-on collision inside the LHC, their intense electromagnetic fields interact. In some of these near-misses, the collision creates a pulse of energy that strips three protons from a lead atom (which has 82 protons), turning it into gold (which has 79).

Using ALICE’s Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs), the team tracked these events and filtered them out from the background of the LHC’s usual particle chaos. Their analysis, published May 7 in Physical Review Journals, measured gold production at an estimated rate of 89,000 nuclei per second during the collider’s latest run.

Why you won’t get rich from it

By the numbers:

Despite the impressive physics, the actual gold yield is vanishingly small. During the LHC’s second run (2015–2018), around 86 billion gold nuclei were created — totaling about 29 picograms (that’s 29 trillionths of a gram). Even with current upgrades doubling production in Run 3, the gold still exists only for a microsecond before disintegrating or smashing into equipment.

To put it simply: you’d need trillions of years of collisions just to make enough gold for a single earring.

What they're saying:

"It is impressive to see that our detectors can handle head-on collisions producing thousands of particles, while also being sensitive to collisions where only a few particles are produced at a time," said ALICE spokesperson Marco Van Leeuwen.

Uliana Dmitrieva, a physicist with ALICE, added: "Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyze the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally."

"The results also test and improve theoretical models of electromagnetic dissociation," said physicist John Jowett, noting that these insights could help address one of the LHC’s biggest challenges: predicting and managing beam losses.

Big picture view:

While no one is cashing in on atom-sized bits of gold, this research offers more than just symbolic significance. It improves scientists’ understanding of how matter behaves at extreme energies and helps validate models used to run the LHC safely and efficiently. It also sheds light on rare particle interactions — including those that may mirror conditions just moments after the Big Bang.

In chasing the mythical goals of alchemy, modern physics is once again unlocking deeper truths about the nature of the universe.