wtf is this about
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/scientists-turn-lead-gold-1st-time-split/story
In a breakthrough that would make medieval alchemists envious, scientists at Europe's Large Hadron Collider have successfully transformed lead into gold, producing 89,000 atoms per second.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a giant particle accelerator that smashes atoms together at super-high speeds. Scientists there have found a way to knock three tiny particles called protons out of lead atoms, turning them into gold atoms.
The team behind this discovery, called the ALICE collaboration, used a unique way to create gold. Instead of crashing lead atoms head-on, they looked at what happens when the atoms just barely miss each other. Researchers explained that when this happens, powerful electromagnetic fields around the atoms can cause them to change into different elements.