Mankind has always strived to obtain the impossible. Perfect life. Perfect love. Perfect backswing.
One of the supposedly unattainable quests for Homo Sapiens has been achieved, leaving the human race free to focus on lesser goals, such as eliminating world hunger, propagating planet-wide peace and finding a suitable replacement now that “The Big Bang Theory” has ended its twelve-season run. That’s right, Campers, let’s home in on the creation of money.
For millennia Alchemy, the science/pseudo-science/blind hope of converting lead into gold, has consumed the imaginations of creative brains as remarkable as Leonardo Da Vinci and Archimedes, yet eluded their grasp.
Fortunately, to quote “Jurassic Park’s” Chaos Theory expert Ian Malcolm, “Life, uh, finds a way.” And, like the embryonic work of the idealists in that 1994 cinematic classic, their efforts produced results. Here is how it goes:
Lead, which has an atomic number of 82 and gold, with an atomic number of 79, are defined as elements by the number of protons they possess. Changing the element requires changing the atomic (proton) number. Because lead is stable, the force needed to release three protons requires lots of energy, making the price of transmuting it more costly than the value of the resulting gold.
Blah blah blah. All I heard was, “Hope for the dreamers! And money.” 1951 Chemistry Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg did the deed in 1980. All it took was some moxie and a nuclear accelerator.
The good news is that a millennia old scientific quest to turn base metals into gold has been achieved. The bad news is that it would cost a quadrillion dollars to create an ounce of the stuff.
Let’s not focus on the negative, though. A dream previously thought “impossible” is possible! To be fair, the Russians stumbled upon alchemy in the 70s, when physicists at a nuclear research facility found the lead shielding of an experimental reactor had changed to gold. A lot of our greatest discoveries have come through accidents. X-Rays and Penicillin, for example.
I have contended for years to anyone who’ll listen that people of our age are living in the sweet spot of existence. Space flight went from theoretical to a reality, a lot of “Star Trek” technology has become commonplace and we have had the privilege to see it live!
Meanwhile, folks younger than we look upon such cool toys and innovations with indifference. Then again, I suppose I take refrigerators, cars and opposable thumbs for granted, while our forefathers had to get by with ice boxes, horses and opposable thumbs. Okay, I was wrong on the last one, but you get my point.
Did I mention teleportation has been achieved? A couple of years ago, a science team from China used quantum mechanics to successfully teleport a photon from the Earth to a receiver out in space. Not exactly Scotty beaming us up, but it’s a start.
What is the common element between these discoveries? The United States, China and Russia. Imagine what the world could do if united in a common goal. Sure, the idea might seem naive and impossible. But then again, so did alchemy and teleportation.
World peace in pursuit of the betterment of mankind. Now that is the dream we should strive to obtain.
