In a feat that echoes the dreams of medieval alchemists, scientists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva have stumbled upon an incredible phenomenon: the creation of gold from lead! This astonishing event took place during the LHC's second run, between 2015 and 2018, achieving speeds of 99.999993% the speed of light.

During these high-energy collisions, the researchers accidentally produced around 86 billion gold nuclei. Though this resulted in a minuscule amount—only 29 trillionths of a gram—the gold’s fleeting existence stunned the scientific community as it shattered against the beam pipe just milliseconds after its creation.

Marco van Leeuwen, a spokesperson for the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) collaboration, marveled at their detection technology that could track both the chaotic collisions yielding thousands of particles and the rare instances of gold emergence.

Historically, alchemists believed that lead was merely a "sick" metal, one that could be healed through the alchemical process to become gold. While they may have missed the mark, their hypothesis held some weight: both metals are extremely close neighbors on the periodic table, with gold possessing just three fewer protons than lead.

The scientific magic comes from the fact that by altering just three protons (along with a few neutrons), lead can transform into gold, while changing one or two protons creates other elements like thallium or mercury.

To measure the gold produced, physicists employed highly sensitive instruments known as Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs), which could meticulously monitor the streams of protons and neutrons from billions of particle collisions every second.

Interestingly, in the LHC’s ongoing third run, the production rate of gold has surged to about 89,000 nuclei per second—almost double the amount from the previous run—thanks to enhanced energy levels. "This analysis represents a groundbreaking moment in systematically detecting and examining gold production at the LHC," remarked physicist Uliana Dmitrieva, showcasing the experiment's revolutionary advancements.