Multiplication transmutation

While some contemporary alchemists such as Hunter, Emmens, Jollivet-Castelot, and Ayton had indeed tried to make gold, Ramsay s attempted transmutations led to a rush toward a different kind of treasure scientific immortality. Multiple chemists pursued the same kinds of experiments that Ramsay had, believing that they too had found positive results. They attempted to position themselves within the scientific world as the first to have proven artificial transmutation. Between 1907, when Ramsay announced his supposed copper transmutations in Nature, and 1914, when he abandoned his efforts, several significant chemists (including J. N. Collie, Hubert Patterson, E. C. C. Baly, Thomas Merton, Irvine Masson, and A. C. G. Egerton) all participated in experiments to use either radium emanation or cathode rays and X-rays to cause chemical transmutation. 

WHEEL This represents the sequence of the operations of the Hermetic Work. To turn a Wheel is to observe the Regime of Fire. To produce a circulation of the Wheel means to recommence the alchemical operations, whether by a production of the Stone or by its multiplication in quality. The Elementary Wheel of the Wise symbolizes the conversion of Philosophical Elements this represents a transmutation of Earth into Water, then of Water into Earth Water encloses Air and Earth contains Fire. ... 

Berzelius proposed that, if elements combine to form compounds with other than a one-to-one ratio of atoms, the multiplicities be denoted by superscripted numbers, later transmuted to subscripts. So the two-to-one ratio of hydrogen and oxygen in water is denoted H,0. 

Ice or snow is converted by the action of heat into water. Therefore it was first water then snow or ice. But all metals can be converted into quicksilver, therefore they were first quicksilver. The method of converting them into quicksilver I shall teach below. But it being granted that a metal can be converted into quicksilver, there is refuted the opinion of those who assert that it is not possible for spirits (spiritus, that is volatile substances) and other materials to be transmuted into the elements and into the nature of metals, unless first reduced to their primal matter. This reduction to their primal matter is easy as I shall show below. Therefore the transmutation of metals is possible and easy. In the same way it can be shown you that the multiplication of metals is possible for everything that is born and grows is multiplied, as is clear with plants and trees. For from one seed a thousand seeds are procreated,... 

Hide a little gold or silver up your sleeve, or conceal it in a hollow rod sealed with wax that melts on warming. Then introduce the gold or silver into a crucible when the victim-to-be is not looking, and tell him that the metal was produced by multiplication. Once he is persuaded that he has seen multiplication at work, he will readily come forward with his own gold or silver, for further multiplication or transmutation. Then take the money and run. By such tricks, the canon conned his victims into supporting his alchemical endeavors. But even in the case of such a cheat, it is important to recognize that he used fraud to finance earnest attempts to discover the philosophers stone. 

The Red Stone in the First Degree is said to have the power to transmute metals in the ratio of one part Stone to ten parts metal. The Stone s power can be increased ten-fold in a process called Multiplication. This process is very much like that of preparing the original Red Stone, only it takes much less time. 

If we take this Red Stone and repeat the process of multiplication on it, one part will act on one thousand parts of metal, then ten thousand parts, and so on. Remember that before the Stone can be used for metallic transmutations it must go through the process of Inceration, whatever degree it has been multiplied to. Some believe it is quite dangerous to multiply the Stone more than seven times, as it is said to become first luminous then unstable altogether with the possibility of catastrophic consequences. 

Depending on the quality and multiplication of the. Stone, more or less of it may be required to effect the transmutation of various metals. For example, if one part of the stone is found to act on one hundred parts of pure silver, that same one part may only affect ten parts of a more crude metal such as tin or lead. Silver is a noble metal next to gold and often used as a guide in determining the strength of the Red Stone s power to effect transmutation. 

For use in nuclear weapons, the concentration of °Pu in the plutonium should be low, because the presence of this nuclide leads to the production of appreciable amounts of neutrons by spontaneous fission if the concentration of °Pu is too high the neutron multiplication would start too early with a relatively small multiplication factor, and the energy release would be relatively low. Higher concentrations of " Pu also interfere, because of its transmutation into " Am with a half-life of only 14.35 y. To minimize the formation of " °Pu and " Pu, Pu for use in weapons is, in general, produced in special reactors by low bum-up (<20 000 MWth d per ton). 

At the extremely high fluxes of a nuclear explosion, fast multiple neutron capture leads to very neutron-rich isotopes of U or Pu, respectively, changing rapidly into elements of appreciably higher atomic numbers by a quick succession of transmutations. This method of formation of heavier elements is also indicated in Fig. 14.5. The elements can be found in the debris of nuclear underground explosions. 

Work. The Stone could then be used in converting base metals into more gold, so that the original gold was multi-plied, as the alchemists were wont to say. One of their favourite metals for multiplication was mercury and this choice has been curiously vindicated by modem observa tions that gold can really be produced by transmutation from mercury, although only in excessively minute amounts and at great cost. 

The operations even of the esoteric alchemists were subject to wide variations but the central and crucial feature of the Great Work consisted in a prolonged and controlled heating of the proximate materials, under the right conditions, in the scaled vessel of Hermes. Thereafter it was often supposed that (he potency of the Stone could be greatly enhanced in the process called multiplication. Finally, the multiplied Stone was added to the fused base metal in the crowning operation of projection, thereby bringing about a rapid and spectacular transmutation. Finis coronal opus ... 

Transmutation. Recycling actinides to the LWRs will decrease the average material neutron multiplication factor by only 0.8 percent, provided that they are of high purity [C2], Recycling to LMFBRs, however, will be preferred. There will be less neutron capture in impurities, such as lanthanides, and the average fission-to-capture ratio of the actinides should be higher in a fast spectrum than in a thermal one. 

Unlike fast reactors that operate on the criticality principle where the nuclear reaction is sustained, ADS systems are subcritical. When the proton beam is off in an ADS, no neutrons are created and no nuclear reaction occurs. An often overlooked key component of an ADS is the supporting chemical processing plant. Within the plant, separation processes are used to first partition the spent fuel to obtain the waste material that is introduced into the ADS and then later to support multiple recycle, fuel fabrication, and finally the production of the final waste forms acceptable to a geologic repository. All of these activities are crucial to the success of transmutation using ADS and considerable R D is needed to make this a reality. 

Nuclear Spin Contribution. The nuclear spin partition function is the product of the nuclear spin multiplicity 2ij -H 1) for all the atoms in the molecule, where /V is the nuclear spin of the yth atom. Since, apart from processes involving molecular hydrogen and its isotopes (and the transmutation of the elements), nuclear spins are conserved, this contribution is conventionally omitted from the total entropy leaving the practical or virtual entropy (these adjectives are frequently omitted also). 

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