This week I practiced Alchemy

hfjacinto

I used the book of Alchemy

To transform 33 Indian Head Cents

A dollar from Hawaii.

A dollar from the European front in WWII

10 cents from the Civil War.

Into Gold.

And I still had $2 left over.

Estil

Actually it's a good thing alchemy did NOT work! Because then gold/silver would not be worth anymore than any other metal. And DON'T think something like that could never happen...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall–Héroult_process

ctf_error_coins

Not alchemy but perhaps a bright mind can figure how to capitalize on this ...

From NOAA: One study found there is only about one gram of gold for every 100 million metric tons of ocean water in the Atlantic and north Pacific. Sup Elon?

hfjacinto

No to derail a “joke” post but the process of turning base elements into gold has and does occur. In nature everytime a star goes super nova, every element heavier than iron is created in the blast. Regular stars can only fuse elements till iron so 2 hydrogen atoms fuse to helium and release energy what we get as light and heat from the sun. Helium fuses to Carbon and then there is mixing.

Carbon plus helium produces oxygen.
Oxygen plus helium produces neon.
Neon plus helium produces magnesium.
Magnesium plus helium produces silicon.
Silicon plus helium produces sulfur.
Sulfur plus helium produces argon.
Argon plus helium produces calcium.
Calcium plus helium produces titanium.
Titanium plus helium produces chromium.
Chromium plus helium produces iron.

Until iron is fused. It takes more energy than is produced to fuse elements greater than iron. Hence when a star fuses iron, it’s life is done. If it’s the size of our sun, the star collapse to a white dwarf, basically an ember of super dense material with a majority of the sun being expelled into the cosmos (basically if humans lived that long we would be all dead, but we would have died billions of years before this to the sun expending as it fuses the different elements).

If a star is big enough it starts the collapsing to a white dwarf and keeps on going until repulsive force of the atoms blow it apart. In that maelstrom of energy every element is created heavier than iron including all the gold on earth.

If the star is big enough it just collapses into a black hole. Luckily very few stars are that large.

On earth every nuclear explosion created enough energy to produce grams of gold, so the all the nuclear bombs detonated or used in war produced a few grams of gold.

So alchemy does work after the 1949’s just not with the technology of the prior centuries.

element159

I think with gold, platinum, and maybe even silver, supernovas are not even enough to make them. You actually need colliding neutron stars to make those heavy atoms. The stars make lots of stuff up to iron and a bit, but not everything.

Personally I recommend that you make a nice prudent investment in a smoke detector, to protect you against fire, and also steadily making you atoms of neptunium as the americium in the smoke detector breaks down.

hfjacinto

@element159 said:
I think with gold, platinum, and maybe even silver, supernovas are not even enough to make them. You actually need colliding neutron stars to make those heavy atoms. The stars make lots of stuff up to iron and a bit, but not everything.

That was true from 2017 to 2020, but there are several issues with one being that there just aren’t enough neutron star collisions to account for all the gold on earth. Based on observed collisions of Neutron stars, they can produce .03% of the gold currently know which means 99.97% comes from someplace else.

Latest studies are saying that supernova are the most likely cause again. New calculations take into account the compression and how that speeds up the rotation. That extra energy (fast rotation) can be enough to produce the necessary energy (r-process) needed to add the extra neutrons to iron to produce the heavy elements up to uranium.

1630Boston

Now I get it
.
.

1630Boston

@hfjacinto
I think you did well consolidating many items into one gold item.

ricko

OK then.... So I have been stacking the results of super novas....and I did not use lead gloves to handle them I did check, and my hands do not glow in the dark. Cheers, RickO

hfjacinto

@ricko remember we only have to worry about the radioactive elements. Gold, Platinum, Silver are all good. Stack all you want but be careful with fingerprints.

ricko

@hfjacinto... True, however, they could be 'contaminated' - at least I think they could be. Cheers, RickO

TomB

Nice alchemy!

When I was in grad school I used to ride my ten-speed bike all around the city in the 2:00-4:00 AM hours since it was a good workout and few folks were on the roads at that time. During these rides I would sometimes notice enormous piles of beer cans, perhaps from dorm or frat parties, left on the side of the road for garbage pick-up. This was at a time prior to curbside recycling so I would take those cans to the local 24-hour grocery store and drop them off for a nickel or dime each. After a while I used the funds from these drop-offs to buy two half eagles! That's my story of alchemy in turning aluminum into gold.

hfjacinto

@TomB

Great alchemy story! Monday's are our "Big" Garbage day. I walk the dog every day and on Sunday nights its usually a feast of free things. In the beginning of Covid people must have been home bored so they started throwing out stuff. One Sunday night I found the following all in excellent condition.

2 Tiffany glass shade lamps from the early 30's or 40's
A brand new set of Mercedes SUV all weather mats, still in the carboard
and 3 brand new revell Plane models

I ran home got the SUV and took the items home. I listed them on Craigs list and was able to sell everything in a few days. I used the money to get Indian Head Cents.

Technically not alchemy as nothing was changed to gold, but I did exchange free items into paper and the paper was changed to 4 slabbed Indian Heads. Close enough.

TomB

Now that is what I call recycling!

1630Boston

Is this REVERSE alchemy ?
.
.

cohodk

@TomB said:

I would take those cans to the local 24-hour grocery store and drop them off for a nickel or dime each. After a while I used the funds from these drop-offs to buy two half eagles! That's my story of alchemy in turning aluminum into gold.

I did the same. 5c a can. Would make about $50/week. I usually turned it into gasoline or more beer cans though. Lol

hfjacinto

@ricko said:
@hfjacinto... True, however, they could be 'contaminated' - at least I think they could be. Cheers, RickO

@ricko if you are really concerned, please ship all the gold to me and I will hold it for you. I might even do a Scrooge mcduck

https://youtu.be/lpbKWReQwsY