Transmuting Lead into Gold, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Achieves Alchemist’s Dreams for a Fraction of a Second

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has momentarily transformed lead into gold, the long-sought-after goal of medieval alchemists.

Source: Transmuting Lead into Gold, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Achieves Alchemist’s Dreams for a Fraction of a Second

tl;dr: how much gold?

After analyzing data from 2015 to 2018, the ALICE team estimated that the LHC created approximately 86 billion gold nuclei during four separate experiments. Still, that equates to just 29 trillionths of a gram—nowhere near enough to make even a speck of jewelry. Even with recent LHC upgrades increasing production rates, the amount of gold produced remains vanishingly small.

for funsies, I will attempt to read the paper.