# With infinite money, could you turn lead into gold?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-infinite-money-could-you-turn-lead-into-gold/412477>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 20, 2007, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-infinite-money-could-you-turn-lead-into-gold/412477 "2007-07-20T01:24:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![NobodyNumberSeven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b487fb/32.png) [@NobodyNumberSeven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NobodyNumberSeven)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-infinite-money-could-you-turn-lead-into-gold/412477/1 "2007-07-20T01:24:49Z")

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Suppose I had near infinite money to build my own nuclear reactor, super conducting super collider, power plants, etc. Assuming I don’t mind losing money on the deal, would it be possible for me to literally turn lead into gold in significant amounts (say, at least one ton)?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-infinite-money-could-you-turn-lead-into-gold/412477/2 "2007-07-20T01:33:46Z")

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It’s possible to turn lead into gold with that kind of equipment, but only a few atoms at a time. Money wouldn’t be your obstacle - it would be time. It would just take a horribly long time to transmute your way to a ton of gold, atom by atom. I’ll let someone else do the maths, but my WAG is that you might just be able to produce a visible speck of gold in the rest of your lifetime, assuming you’re still fairly young.

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**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-infinite-money-could-you-turn-lead-into-gold/412477/3 "2007-07-20T02:11:25Z")

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The only reports I have found state that in 1972 Russian scientists found the presence of gold in their lead shielding of one of their reactors. However, I have found no primary literature to say that is possible to turn lead into gold or has been done independently elsewhere. This source for instance seems about third hand [How to Turn Lead Into Gold](http://chemistry.about.com/cs/generalchemistry/a/aa050601a.htm)

One of the problems is that you are unlikely to hit upon a stable isotope of gold, and thus your gold is both unstable and radioactive.

I would be interested if anyone has a more authoritative source for lead into gold

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-infinite-money-could-you-turn-lead-into-gold/412477/4 "2007-07-20T12:28:39Z")

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And don’t forget that the more gold you have in the reactor, the more likely it is itself to be changed into something else.

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**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-infinite-money-could-you-turn-lead-into-gold/412477/5 "2007-07-20T17:20:00Z")

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Take all the lead. Sell it. Use the money to buy gold. 🙂