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While obviously you can't really transmute something like Lead into Gold (as far as I know), is there any real-life mineral or element that could be used to artificially create Gold from whatever its composite elements are? If so, what kinds of processes would you have to run the ingredients through to make Gold?

L.Dutch
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BonnetBee
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    Related: Is it possible to obtain gold through nuclear decay? – Alexander Jan 25 '19 at 00:43
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    As background for an already-given answer, gold is an element. This means that it has no composite elements, chemically speaking. – jdunlop Jan 25 '19 at 00:47
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    Oh... Thanks, I actually didn't know that? I somehow never got put in a chemistry class in highschool, so I might have some reading to do on the subject XD – BonnetBee Jan 25 '19 at 00:52
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    To be fair, this technically isn't a worldbuilding question. Compare it to this question where the "technology" of transmutation is being applied in a worldbuilding context. For future reference, that's the kind of question we prefer to see posted: one where there is a defined and specific worldbuilding application. Cheers! – JBH Jan 25 '19 at 03:12
  • I've worked out a method to reliably transform ice into water... not ready to publish yet.. so just between us...., but stay tuned (Y) – Kilisi Jan 25 '19 at 07:09
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    Google changing lead to gold in particle accelerators. It was done. – Mołot Jan 25 '19 at 07:34
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    Rutherford famously remarked "don't call it transmutation, they'll have our heads off as alchemists" when his colleague applied the word to nuclear transmutation. The alchemists of old could never have guessed at the actual processes that can turn lead into gold, though. – Jeroen Mostert Jan 25 '19 at 13:32
  • I guess I'm kind of looking for general ideas to build a world around? I think it was more of a curiosity question, but now it's given me the idea of "Magic" producing some sort of nuclear-style power? That could actually open up some REALLY interesting possibilities in multiple directions... – BonnetBee Jan 25 '19 at 18:58

3 Answers3

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Changing Element A into Element B requires changing the number of protons in each atom of Element A. There is NO chemical process that can affect the number of protons in any atom.

Chemical processes can be used to concentrate or dilute gold atoms mixed among others. Chemical processes can bond or separate gold atoms locked in compounds. But no chemical process can change another element into gold.

...assuming your alchemist is honest, of course. Any charlatan worthy of the name can whip up a convincing transmutation swindle.

user535733
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    Ah! So maybe "Transmutation", in this setting, is really just a matter of Sifting Out Gold That's Already There? – BonnetBee Jan 25 '19 at 01:03
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    Which is more commonly called "smelting and refining". https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/gold-smelting-refining-process – jdunlop Jan 25 '19 at 01:12
  • @BonnetBee Does magic exist in the setting? If so, perhaps nuclear transmutation is possible through the application of magic? – Arkenstein XII Jan 25 '19 at 01:22
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    @ArkensteinXII - he's got the reality-check tag in place, so... probably not? – jdunlop Jan 25 '19 at 01:22
  • @jdunlop Fair call. Seems unlikely then! – Arkenstein XII Jan 25 '19 at 01:23
  • A truly talented charlatan is distinguished by their ability to know exactly when to pack a bag and leave town. – jdunlop Jan 25 '19 at 01:36
  • This does not answer the question. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 02:10
  • @Gimelist : "This does not answer the question" : actually it does, for any normal "man on the street" this answer is very clearly stating that there is no "real-life mineral or element that could be used to artificially create Gold from whatever its composite elements are?", which is the question. – Pelinore Jan 25 '19 at 02:40
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    This is the correct answer. To make a point: we can manipulate molecules by moving elements in and out of molecular configurations - but we cannot manipulate elements other than destructively. We can take them apart (via e.g. nuclear explosions or particle accelerators), but we don't know how to put them back together again... yet.... perhaps someday there will be technomages. And then gold will be worthless. – JBH Jan 25 '19 at 03:09
  • @Pelinore as per my reply to your other comment, "gold telluride" is not gold in the perception of any "man on the street". It's just a piece of rock, or mineral. By artificially processing it, you are creating gold. There was no condition that the gold could not have been there to begin with. And if we think of the general idea of the question and not be nit-picky about technicalities - you have a process where "not gold" comes in, and "gold" comes out. Therefore, jdunop's answer is correct. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:10
  • @Gimelist : "gold telluride" is an ore that gold can be smelted from & as such it would worse than useless to an alchemist trying to fake transmutation of base metal into gold, because anyone involved in the the mining or extraction of gold from ore will know exactly what it is with a single glance & these are exactly the people that will be called in to authenticate that the gold produced is really gold. by processing it you're not creating gold you're just extracting it from an ore, nothing nit-picky about it just the facts, jdunlop's answer is wrong. – Pelinore Jan 25 '19 at 03:35
  • @Pelinore In medieval times, gold was never smelted. It was always mined as elemental gold. Gold tellurides are chalcogenides which share many properties with other materials such as pyrite (aka fool's gold). Anyone involved in the business of mining gold, would tell you that this material (gold telluride) is worthless because it's like pyrite and it has no gold in it. Furthermore, it is extremely rare and most people will never have seen gold telluride. An alchemist might be able to have a source of gold tellurides which appear worthless, but actually are full of gold. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:41
  • @Gimelist : "it has no gold in it" sorry what? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calaverite Calaverite formula AuTe2, would you care to rephrase that? – Pelinore Jan 25 '19 at 03:48
  • @Pelinore You misunderstood me. I was saying that because in medieval times (potentially when you had alchemists) you had no way of telling whether it has gold or not. They didn't have XRF machines back then. The only way to know whether there's gold in there, was to actually dissolve it. To do that, two things need to happen: 1. You need to get hold of the material (which is extremely rare. You don't have calaverites just sitting on the ground. 2. For someone to bother to do it. For example, a potential alchemist would say: "This is fool's gold! Why bother with it?!". – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:50
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While it is impossible to transmute any element into another by chemical means, it is entirely possible to do it via nuclear means.

In fact, Glenn T. Seaborg in 1980 was able to transmute several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold, however at a net loss economically speaking (the cost of equipment, energy, and bismuth was greater than the value of the gold.)

Arkenstein XII
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    "At a net loss", I rather expect, is a major understatement. Gold's highest value in 1980 was $850/ounce, or ~$28/gram. Assuming ten thousand atoms, the value of the created gold would be 3.3 * 10^-18g * $28/g or approximately a hundred trillionth of a cent. Also, the majority of the transmuted gold was radioactive and would have decayed over the course of the next year. – jdunlop Jan 25 '19 at 00:56
  • You get better results when you expose Hg 196 to a high neutron flux. It would create Hg 197, and EC into Au 197, which is stable. But again, would be ridiculously expensive to create a sufficient quantity of it. Especially since Hg196 represents 0.15% of naturally occurring mercury – sonvar Jan 25 '19 at 03:53
  • Assuming the existence of nanobots - robots so tiny, they can manipulate atoms with a good degree of precision, would it be possible to have them re-arrange protons and neutrons to literally make any atom we want? – VLAZ Jan 25 '19 at 06:36
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    nanobots, no, protons are much smaller than atoms. – Jasen Jan 25 '19 at 08:38
  • Yeah, I guess that my core question (in retrospect) seems to have been mangled a bit. I blame the lack of coffee. My main point was can you have a nanobot so they can manipulate protons and neutrons? To me it seems impossible - the bot has to be smaller or at least on the same scale of an atom to do it but it should still be constructed by atoms, so they would probably be too big to work with protons. But I don't know if you can have a much smaller building block for the nanobots. AFAIK, if you compress an atom to be smaller that is related to Bad Stuff™. – VLAZ Jan 25 '19 at 08:45
  • @vlaz That's deep into science fiction with technology indistinguishable from magic. The only things I'm aware of that are made solely out of subatomic particles are atoms, so it's hard to imagine what a nanobot made out of them only would be like. Further, what tools would it use to manipulate subatomic particles, and what would they be made of/how would they be powered? It's like FTL travel-- it can be imagined, but is impossible to actually have given what is currently known about the universe. – Upper_Case Jan 25 '19 at 17:50
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Given your response to existing answers, I have a potentially showy solution for your would-be alchemist:

Calavarite (naturally occurring gold telluride)

Calavarite crystal

It's uncommon in real life, but could be unusually common for whatever reason in the vicinity of wherever this feat is to take place.

Your would-be alchemist/wizard is dropping fancy stones into vitriol, as one does, to see what happens. To his shock, a gleam of gold starts to form as the liquid turns red. He has discovered the Philosopher's Stone!

(He has not. But it's a good way to get more research money from the local royalty!)

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jdunlop
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  • This is the correct answer. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 02:10
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    @Gimelist : ^ No it's not : The question was "is there any real-life mineral or element that could be used to artificially create Gold" this answer doesn't answer that question, it suggests a source of gold that gold can be extracted from, & the question wasn't "name an ore that gold can be smelted from" : it's a nice response to the question but to call it the "correct" answer, is not correct. – Pelinore Jan 25 '19 at 03:03
  • @Pelinore no - because "gold telluride" does not equal "gold". Just like hydrogen does not equal water. So you're taking "some mineral", being gold telluride (= not gold), and you process it somehow to turn it into gold from "whatever its composite elements are", which happen to be gold and tellurium. There was no condition that gold cannot be a component of the mineral. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:08
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    @Gimelist : all I can say is kindly read the question again & check the definitions of the words "create" & "extract" then reconsider. – Pelinore Jan 25 '19 at 03:11
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    @Pelinore to the "man on the street", or someone in a medieval society with no knowledge of 20th and 21st century chemistry, the distinction in meaningless. When you look at the history of element discovery, many elements were "discovered" only to be later realised to contain a combination of elements. The lanthanides are an excellent example of that. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:13
  • @Pelinore and if you read the question and read between the lines, you understand that what OP is asking is whether there is a mineral (or element) which is not gold, that can be converted to gold. Therefore, this answer satisfies the requirement of OP, even if OP did not fully articulate this in the question. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:14
  • @Gimelist : "if you read the question and read between the lines, you understand that what OP is asking is whether there is a mineral (or element) which is not gold, that can be converted to gold" precisely, that is exactly how I read the question & the answer is (& can only ever be) "no, there isn't" because gold is an element & you can never convert one element into another element, which isn't nit picking, just the facts. – Pelinore Jan 25 '19 at 03:19
  • The question says "mineral or element". Or. This. Or. That. One or the other. But whatever. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:26
  • @Pelinore and to a layperson (which is clearly what the OP is, given their comments) the distinction between "create", "extract", "smelt", "refine" does not exist. Iron ore is just red dust. To a layperson, you are essentially "creating" iron out of some mud. The fact that the dust was iron oxide does not matter. Same thing with gold and calaverite. You have a material which does not have the properties of gold, and you "create" (in the wider sense) something that is gold. Don't take the question too literal, when clearly OP did not have the knowledge to correctly define it. – Gimelist Jan 25 '19 at 03:54
  • @jdunlop I really like this answer, though I might suggest adding clarification that this doesn't technically create gold so much as it extracts the gold! – MrSpudtastic Jan 25 '19 at 15:00