Modern Alchemy ‘Achieved’: The LHC’s Fleeting Gold Offers a Lens to Appreciate the Mixed Legacy of Sixteenth-Century Inquiry, Separating Genuine Early Science from Unhealthy Crankery
As reported in Physical Review Journals, (and in science press and popular press) the ALICE collaboration has measured the transmutation of lead into gold at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
This process occurs during near-miss collisions of lead nuclei, where powerful electromagnetic fields cause some nuclei to lose three protons, thus become gold.
Coloured periodic table showing the most common sets of elements
Although the LHC produces gold nuclei, their existence is fleeting and the process is… wildly uneconomic as a way of getting gold.
This research contributes to a better understanding and refinement of theoretical models concerning electromagnetic dissociation, vital for the LHC’s operation and the design of future colliders.
Element 79 gold (Au) enhanced Bohr model
We are pleased to support Oxford University’s outreach to Thomas Adams School, sharing these sorts of CERN developments with local students in collaboration with Professor Todd Huffman of Lady Margaret Hall.
Lead (Attribution: Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-Y-SA-3.0)
A gold nugget
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This news offers a valuable opportunity to contextualize and rationalize our understanding of 16th-century intellectual life.
The alchemical quest to turn lead into gold, now achieved albeit fleetingly at this subatomic level, was a significant ambition during that era.
Indeed, the Tudor state, via its prominent figures, actively engaged with alchemists, offering patronage and licenses, reflecting a strategic, though often sceptical, consideration of the potential economic benefits. This highlights how deeply the aspirations of alchemy were intertwined with the political and economic objectives of C16th English statecraft.
It is intriguing to consider this modern scientific achievement in relation to our own Sir Rowland Hill (d. 1561).
Old Sir Rowland was a 16th-century polymath and merchant. He would likely have been aware of alchemy’s ambitions, particularly the elusive goal of transmutation.
This brings us to a crucial point for understanding the intellectual environment during the construction of Soulton Hall.
The 16th century featured an integrated intellectual world where early scientific inquiry and mystical beliefs were interwoven, a landscape undergoing a crucial process of assessment, disaggregation, and the sorting of valuable insights from unfounded notions.
Our current distinct academic disciplines are the result of that journey from this unified approach to differentiated knowledge.
Alchemy exemplifies this, blending early observations of the natural world (grounded, not fantastical) with pursuits like the elixir of life (clearly unfounded). Reflecting charitably, one might say its focus on inner change offered a basic precursor to applied psychology. We now benefit from the intellectual sorting that followed, notably shaped by thinkers like Francis Bacon, who took inspiration from Sir Rowland Hill, a connection visible in architectural lineage with Soulton Hall mirrored in Verulam House, reflecting this evolution of thought.
Francis Bacon by By Paul van Somer
In closing, it’s crucial to recognize that the intellectual landscape of the 16th century was a period of significant sorting and discernment of ideas.
While some concepts from that era have been thoroughly discredited as nonsense, through subsequent scientific progress, others laid the groundwork for disciplines we now engage with soberly and seriously.
The authority and insights of individuals navigating those early stages of intellectual development, working to distinguish valuable knowledge from what we now understand as nonsense, should not be misconstrued.
Our present advantage of historical perspective and established scientific processes allows us to look back with greater clarity.
Importantly, the fact that 16th-century thinkers had yet to fully discount what we now know to be entirely unfounded should not be used to lend credence to ideas that have since been firmly established as disreputable.
Understanding this historical process of intellectual refinement allows for a more nuanced appreciation of both past and present knowledge.
