Science Nerd question - is transmutation possible?

[FatDino]

Well, I heard you saying sexy stuff... it was like a siren call...

I you, you weirdo.

 

[damppanties]

I you, you weirdo.

I know, I know. Talk geek again, please? For me?

 

[FatDino]

I know, I know. Talk geek again, please? For me?

Pfffft...I can't just talk geek on command. I need a topic to talk about.

 

[damppanties]

Pfffft...I can't just talk geek on command. I need a topic to talk about.

Oh ok then. Until next time...

 

[Lisa Denton]

Make a super duper thermonuclear explosion Or 100 of them. Probably a few details to be worked out there , but something like that.

Dino, are you sure about the direction of tranmutation? Because I'm pretty sure ...................

As a member of scientific nerd community, I would like to request that ya'll work out details, directions, and be "pretty DARN sure" before you start settin off all these super duper explosions and shit.

Remember, a successful experiment is not only one which you walk away from alive, but also the rest of us innocent bystanders.

(Lisa crawls back under the bed in case Roxanne starts blowin shit up)

 

[ExoMani]

We can do it -- Lead into Gold, for example, happens in fission reactors.

We just can't do it economically; IIRC, Isaac Asimov estimated (in on of his "popular science" essays) the cost of transmuting one ounce of Lead into Gold would be more than the cost of refining every ounce of gold ever mined.

Some elements wouldn't exist without transmutation -- Plutonium and all of the other "trans-uranics" aren't naturally occuring elements.

In my not so humble opinion, this answer is "dead-on" correct.

By the way, Asimov also mentioned transmutation, once, in his "Foundation Triolgy".

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Dino, 3113, WH, RR, Exo and others - you guys are really smart!

Note that in the OP I specified "sometime in the next 10,000 years or so." That's a long time in the human scale, but obviously an eyeblink to the universe. Anyway, what I get from what you've all said here is this:

"Yeah, we could do it. We can do a little bit of it right now, even. We don't know how to do it economically, and I can't imagine how make the tools needed (given what we know today), but hell - in 10k years who knows what we'll know? Bottom line - it's conceiveable."

Abs - Oh pshaw - Me know you smart too, know lots science stuff, Abs not dummie!