Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The term transmutation dates back to alchemy.Alchemists pursued the philosopher's stone, capable of chrysopoeia – the transformation of base metals into gold. [3] While alchemists often understood chrysopoeia as a metaphor for a mystical or religious process, some practitioners adopted a literal interpretation and tried to make gold through physical experimentation.
Such transmutation is possible in particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, although the production cost is estimated to be a trillion times the market price of gold. Since there is only one stable gold isotope, 197 Au, nuclear reactions must create this isotope in order to produce usable gold. [4]
In alchemy, the term chrysopoeia (from Ancient Greek χρυσοποιία (khrusopoiía) 'gold-making') refers to the artificial production of gold, most commonly by the alleged transmutation of base metals such as lead.
Depiction of Sedziwój performing a transmutation for Sigismund III by Jan Matejko, 1867. Projection was the ultimate goal of Western alchemy.Once the philosopher's stone or powder of projection had been created, the process of projection would be used to transmute a lesser substance into a higher form; often lead into gold.
Nuclear chemistry is the sub-field of chemistry dealing with radioactivity, nuclear processes, and transformations in the nuclei of atoms, such as nuclear transmutation and nuclear properties. It is the chemistry of radioactive elements such as the actinides , radium and radon together with the chemistry associated with equipment (such as ...
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a transformation of at least one nuclide to another.
Chrysopoeia and argyropoeia, the turning of base metals, such as lead or copper, into gold and silver; Magnum opus (alchemy), the creation of the philosopher's stone; Mental transmutation, the transformation of a mental state
The most important isotopes of these elements in spent nuclear fuel are neptunium-237, americium-241, americium-243, curium-242 through -248, and californium-249 through -252. Plutonium and the minor actinides will be responsible for the bulk of the radiotoxicity and heat generation of spent nuclear fuel in the long term (300 to 20,000 years in ...