Creating gold with low cost in future?

You left out the first part (transmutation) in your previous post, effectively saying that alchemy did not concern itself with converting base metals to gold. I think that's what led to the attempted correction.

There's a lot more to alchemy than a simple textbook definition. If I had to attempt a short definition, I'd say it was concerned with purification or refinement, where gold was viewed as the "most pure" form of metal, and a healthy and unaging body was viewed as the "most pure" form of human existence. But again, that immensely shortchanges the field.

 

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"And I certainly did not realize that in case we reach a technological level that enables us to generate cheap massive energy to create gold, then our world would be unrecognizable due to the limitless cheap energy. Fascinating to think about it."

Herberto, I wish I had your positive hope for the world, but limitless energy will allow all politicians, religious groups, social outcasts, etc. on the earth and their followers to use that energy as a threat for power or destroy the planet But I will likely be gone from here by then . Since some turtles can live up to 400 years, we have a lot to learn. Jim

 

Thank you for recognizing possibilities in "the turtles" longevity.

My posts were intended to be thoughtful/informative and possibly educational, when pertaining to the source of words.

Origins/literal-meanings are believed important, as when we examine the words "indefinitely prolonged", "ultimate cure", we've achieved both of those goals through our medical processes (extended-life, death) are unnatural, and indefinite.

Maude in movie "Harold and Maude" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_and_Maude) and I, who believes in personal Euthanasia, had/have a "definite" human life span.

Life could/would possibly end at a defined point, but otherwise is "indefinite" (un-defined).

An apology is hereby given to anyone offended by my educationally-intended posts.

I'M SORRY, and will attempt to not evoke unintended "productive/controversial-thought" in the future.

 

Well, that was also what I meant with "our world would be unrecognizable" - It is either destroyed, if not, then it is totally different with a completely new form of unprecedented economic system.

 

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

I won't rule out the possibility that in the far future, someone develops the technology to assemble elements inexpensively. But so much would have to happen between then and now, I'm pretty sure the beings and society which achieves it would be unrecognizable to us as humans.

The approach Seaborg used to create gold from Bismuth is a probabilistic one, and so little gold was created they could only infer that stable gold was present by detecting the radioactive isotopes. Isolating and extracting the "good" gold from the dross before it underwent further nuclear reactions was not attempted.

Even if you posit unlimited free energy, it would almost certainly be less expensive to extract gold from fly ash, plant ash, or even sea water. Or, for that matter, to fly robots out to 16 Psyche and back to mine the stuff.