Not alchemy: the experiment of creating gold by human hands has been completed

Scientists from The University of Tennessee, together with an international team at the ISOLDE facility at CERN, completed an experiment that remained unattainable for two decades. This is a breakthrough that brings humanity closer "to the creation of gold by human hands, without dependence on supernova explosions or neutron star mergers," the Extract telegram channel reports.

"For the first time in history, accurate neutron energy spectra have been obtained during β-delayed double neutron emission from the isotope indium-134, a key intermediate nucleus in the chain of the r-process. The r-process is a chain reaction of rapid neutron capture in extreme conditions of space, where in seconds the nuclei absorb dozens of neutrons, and then through a series of beta decays and neutron emissions they turn into stable heavy elements like gold, platinum and uranium. So far, the models have been approximate: intermediate nuclei are too unstable, live for milliseconds, and their properties are almost impossible to measure. As a result, the calculations diverged from the real distribution of elements in the Universe by orders of magnitude," the author of the channel writes.

According to him, the experiment with indium-134 broke this barrier. Scientists obtained a pure flux of this isotope using laser separation and detected neutron energies during double emission — a phenomenon that has been recorded only once in history (in the decay of lithium-11). It is noted that these are three discoveries in one experiment: the first direct measurement of energies during β2n decay, observation of the long-predicted but invisible excited state of tin-133 (high—spin i_{13/2} level), and proof of the non-statistical nature of decay - the core "remembers" the original structure, the channel probabilities deviate greatly from standard models.

"These data radically refine the parameters of β-delayed neutron emission. Now r-process models will be able to accurately predict how the chain moves to gold, why such proportions of heavy elements are observed in galaxies. But the main thing is the foundation for artificial synthesis. Gold is already being created in accelerators: in the LHC, protons are torn off in seconds in peripheral collisions of lead nuclei and microscopic amounts of gold are obtained — billions of nuclei over the years, but these are crumbs that disappear instantly. A new breakthrough gives the key to the controlled reproduction of the r-process: understanding the decays of neutron-rich nuclei will allow us to design chains of transformations in laboratory conditions — in future neutron factories, powerful accelerators, or even in thermonuclear reactors with a high neutron flux," the author of the channel writes.

Imagine, he said, not waiting for a dead star to explode and throw gold into space, but producing it on Earth — on an industrial scale, cheaply and controlled. This, according to him, is no longer the alchemy of the Middle Ages, but the nuclear engineering of the XXI century. While the world is chasing cryptocurrency and AI, the real transmutation is taking place in the accelerator tunnels of CERN.

The 2025-2026 experiment is not the end of the road, but the beginning of an era when heavy metals will cease to be a rarity of the universe and will become a product of the human mind. Gold is no longer a gift from the cosmos — it will become ours, concludes the "Extract".