4 ms·

It does make you wonder whether the physicists obsession [1] of turning base metals into gold - is the real reason for the LHC :-) [1] Newton famously spent a

It does make you wonder whether the physicists obsession [1] of turning base metals into gold - is the real reason for the LHC :-) [1] Newton famously spent around 30 years of his life on alchemy ( the other stuff were really side projects )

EA-3167 1y ago
The Ars Magna abides I suppose? I really do think that alchemists would find the modern age of chemistry fascinating, if they could get over the horror of realizing that their religious theories of nature would require immense modification.
- codr7 1y ago
  It's more the other way around, scientists realizing physical reality isn't.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  It would sort of be funny to see the best alchemist get the explanation. “Oh dang, I was not even close.” It is somehow radically simpler in terms of fundamental underlying rules, and radically more complex in terms of… I dunno, emergent complexity or something. Edit: imagine, Alchemist, “But then we were right, it is made up of a small number of tiny discrete elements at the lowest level?!?” Modern physicist: “Oh man… ah, yeah, but here’s the thing about ‘discrete’…”
  - EA-3167 1y ago
    Hahaha! Yeah imagine trying to explain to Paracelsus that if you accelerated him enough he'd have an apparent wavelength.
subscribed 1y ago
No, this is fun. It was long known it can be achieved, but it's prohibitively expensive :)
- dylan604 1y ago
  So they were just waiting for the price of gold to reach a value that made lead=>gold justifiable? I'm expecting a Discovery TV show about the new Gold Rush. Maybe Parker will go all in?
- DrScientist 1y ago
  More seriously you could argue that the whole reason for the LHC is to turn matter/energy of one form into matter/energy ( stuff ) of another. Though rather than lead into gold, it's known stuff into unknown or previously unseen but predicted stuff. So it is, in fact, a giant Alchemy machine. Newton would have been proud.
  - chuckadams 1y ago
    Particle accelerators smash together stuff we know about in order to make stuff we don't know much about so we can study it. There's an ELI5 for ya.
- orsenthil 1y ago
  > It was long known it can be achieved, but it's prohibitively expensive :) Really? I thought, it was one of the Newton's doom which couldn't be achieved. When did humanity know alchemy is a real science?
  - DrScientist 1y ago
    The knowledge about the possibility comes from nuclear physics ( not sure about dates here - 1900-1940s? ) - however there is a difference between theoretical possibility and can actually be made to happen in the lab - I think that wasn't experimentally shown until the 1970's or 1980s.
BuyMyBitcoins 1y ago
If you’re worried about your funding getting cut, transmuting lead into gold is one way to get around that.
- nolok 1y ago
  CERN's budget has not really had a budget cut or a need to justify its budget. Nor does it have extra money flowing, mind you. It's also really cheap for member states all things considered, I think as a french citizen I "pay" 5 euros per year or something like that for CERN ?
  - BuyMyBitcoins 1y ago
    I’m just being glib. As an American I admire the EU’s commitment towards funding scientific endeavors. I still lament that our government abandoned the Superconducting Supercollider in the early 90’s to save money… right around the time our economy was about to boom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
    - nolok 1y ago
      If I'm being entirely fair here, we're not exactly super good at funding research compared to the growing cost of pensions and healthcare in France, but for some reason I don't know - but am very glad of - neither CERN nor ESA has even been a subject matter politically money wise, not even to defend their funding, it's just a "duh".
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      The SSC was an utterly failed project, and would have had difficulty finding the things that the LHC has found, partially because it had really bad Luminosity of the beam. The program was famously badly run, with talented physicists utterly refusing to work with the administrators to keep a ballooning budget under control, and was an example of utterly failed project management. It used a magnet design that had numerous problems, including really severe project management oversights, like deciding to update the magnet design, and accidentally forgetting to update a significant portion of the magnets. Killing the SSC was the correct call. It was going to cost over $12 billion just to build. The LHC eventually cost about $5 billion, and had much more success in the world of project management. It's a lot easier to get science funding when you can demonstrate that you can manage a several billion dollar project, and don't fuck up basic things like accounting.
dcminter 1y ago
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/magic-shows/miscellany/alchemy-and-nobel-prizes https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/magic-shows/miscellany/alch...
qbxk 1y ago
Surely it's the Anunnaki taking a hail mary approach to their colossal atmospheric gold project

EA-3167 1y ago

The Ars Magna abides I suppose? I really do think that alchemists would find the modern age of chemistry fascinating, if they could get over the horror of realizing that their religious theories of nature would require immense modification.

codr7 1y ago
It's more the other way around, scientists realizing physical reality isn't.
bee_rider 1y ago
It would sort of be funny to see the best alchemist get the explanation. “Oh dang, I was not even close.” It is somehow radically simpler in terms of fundamental underlying rules, and radically more complex in terms of… I dunno, emergent complexity or something. Edit: imagine, Alchemist, “But then we were right, it is made up of a small number of tiny discrete elements at the lowest level?!?” Modern physicist: “Oh man… ah, yeah, but here’s the thing about ‘discrete’…”
- EA-3167 1y ago
  Hahaha! Yeah imagine trying to explain to Paracelsus that if you accelerated him enough he'd have an apparent wavelength.

subscribed 1y ago

No, this is fun. It was long known it can be achieved, but it's prohibitively expensive :)

dylan604 1y ago
So they were just waiting for the price of gold to reach a value that made lead=>gold justifiable? I'm expecting a Discovery TV show about the new Gold Rush. Maybe Parker will go all in?
DrScientist 1y ago
More seriously you could argue that the whole reason for the LHC is to turn matter/energy of one form into matter/energy ( stuff ) of another. Though rather than lead into gold, it's known stuff into unknown or previously unseen but predicted stuff. So it is, in fact, a giant Alchemy machine. Newton would have been proud.
- chuckadams 1y ago
  Particle accelerators smash together stuff we know about in order to make stuff we don't know much about so we can study it. There's an ELI5 for ya.
orsenthil 1y ago
> It was long known it can be achieved, but it's prohibitively expensive :) Really? I thought, it was one of the Newton's doom which couldn't be achieved. When did humanity know alchemy is a real science?
- DrScientist 1y ago
  The knowledge about the possibility comes from nuclear physics ( not sure about dates here - 1900-1940s? ) - however there is a difference between theoretical possibility and can actually be made to happen in the lab - I think that wasn't experimentally shown until the 1970's or 1980s.

BuyMyBitcoins 1y ago

If you’re worried about your funding getting cut, transmuting lead into gold is one way to get around that.

nolok 1y ago
CERN's budget has not really had a budget cut or a need to justify its budget. Nor does it have extra money flowing, mind you. It's also really cheap for member states all things considered, I think as a french citizen I "pay" 5 euros per year or something like that for CERN ?
- BuyMyBitcoins 1y ago
  I’m just being glib. As an American I admire the EU’s commitment towards funding scientific endeavors. I still lament that our government abandoned the Superconducting Supercollider in the early 90’s to save money… right around the time our economy was about to boom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
  - nolok 1y ago
    If I'm being entirely fair here, we're not exactly super good at funding research compared to the growing cost of pensions and healthcare in France, but for some reason I don't know - but am very glad of - neither CERN nor ESA has even been a subject matter politically money wise, not even to defend their funding, it's just a "duh".
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    The SSC was an utterly failed project, and would have had difficulty finding the things that the LHC has found, partially because it had really bad Luminosity of the beam. The program was famously badly run, with talented physicists utterly refusing to work with the administrators to keep a ballooning budget under control, and was an example of utterly failed project management. It used a magnet design that had numerous problems, including really severe project management oversights, like deciding to update the magnet design, and accidentally forgetting to update a significant portion of the magnets. Killing the SSC was the correct call. It was going to cost over $12 billion just to build. The LHC eventually cost about $5 billion, and had much more success in the world of project management. It's a lot easier to get science funding when you can demonstrate that you can manage a several billion dollar project, and don't fuck up basic things like accounting.

dcminter 1y ago

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/magic-shows/miscellany/alchemy-and-nobel-prizes https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/magic-shows/miscellany/alch...

qbxk 1y ago

Surely it's the Anunnaki taking a hail mary approach to their colossal atmospheric gold project