Abstract
In the Middle Ages, the Alchemists failed completely in their attempts to transmute lead or other base metals into gold1. Today, we can not only transmute one element to another but create new elements unknown to Nature. We can achieve this transmutation not only in our experiments but also in our theories. We have thus created New Alchemies!
“Transmutation late ME The (supposed or alleged) conversion of one element or substance into another, esp. of a baser metal into gold or silver.”
Oxford English Dictionary
Clarendon Press, Oxford
“In 1919, during his last year at Manchester, he discovered that the nuclei of certain light elements, such as nitrogen, could be ‘disintegrated’ by the impact of energetic alpha particles coming from some radioactive source, and that during this process fast protons were emitted. Blackett later proved, with the cloud chamber, that the nitrogen in this process was actually transformed into an oxygen isotope, so that Rutherford was the first to deliberately transmute one element into another.”
Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1901–1921,
Elsevier Publishing Company,
Amsterdam (1970)
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Wilson, S., Kaldor, U. (2003). Theoretical Chemistry and Physics of Heavy and Superheavy Elements — An Introduction. In: Kaldor, U., Wilson, S. (eds) Theoretical Chemistry and Physics of Heavy and Superheavy Elements. Progress in Theoretical Chemistry and Physics, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0105-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0105-1_1
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