Transmutation and

The new elements neptunium and plutonium have been produced in quantity by neutron bombardment of uranium. Subsequently many isotopes have been obtained by transmutation and synthetic isotopes of elements such as Ac and Pa are more easily obtained than the naturally occurring species. Synthetic species of lighter elements, e.g. Tc and Pm are also prepared. 

The emission of y rays follows, in the majority of cases, what is known as P decay. In the P-decay process, a radionuclide undergoes transmutation and ejects an electron from inside the nucleus (i.e., not an orbital electron). For the purpose of simplicity, positron and electron capture modes are neglected. The resulting transmutated nucleus ends up in an excited nuclear state, which prompdy relaxes by giving offy rays. This is illustrated in Figure 2. 

Sadler, J .L. How to change stone into gold atomic theory of the solar system. Christchurch (NZ) Stone into Gold Transmuting and Research Co Ltd, 1962. 68p. 

McGuire, J. E. Transmutation and immutability Newton s doctrine of physical qualities. Ambix 14 (1967) 69-95. 

Kushi, Michio and Edward Esko. The Philosophers stone Michio Kushi s guide to alchemy, transmutation, and the new science / by Michio Kushi, with Edward Esko foreword by Alex Jack. Becket (MA) One Peaceful World Press, 1994. 96p. ISBN 1882984072... 

The author traces the positions that writers of histories of chemistry took toward alchemy as a total phenomenon, how they regarded the experimental-practical and philosophicoreligious components of it and what stand-points they adopted relative to such alchemical theories as the doctrine of transmutation and the sulfur-mercury theory... 

Yet the resurrection of alchemical tropes at the birth of modern atomic science demands a third version of the story. Weart notes that the word transmutation offered a clue that could help explain almost every strange image that would later appear in nuclear energy tales (6). In order to understand fully the relationships between alchemical transmutation and the science of radioactivity, I take a path that branches off from both the traditional history of scientific discovery and the image history that Weart provides. In Modem Alchemy, I reconstruct the history of how scientific knowledge was produced and how it was elaborated in a broader cultural and spiritual context. That is, I look at science, its public elaboration, and its spiritual4 dimensions as mutually interacting realms, and tell a story of how science and occultism were entwined. 

The scene at the Chemical Society had transcended that ever experienced at a scientific meeting. Ramsay began by giving a clear and concise account of the reasons for his faith in transmutation, and alluded playfully to the criticisms that had been brought against his statements about the transformation of copper into lithium. 

Within only two years of Soddy and Rutherford s papers on atomic transformation as the mechanism for radioactivity, writers of popular fiction did indeed make the shift from cathode rays pulling an unknown element from the moon to radium emissions and other such atomic technologies causing alchemical transmutation—and similarly fretted about the consequences to the gold-standard economy of the West. Rider Haggard s Ayesha The Return of She (1904-05) was noteworthy, as we have mentioned, because... 

As Ramsay put it in his 1912 popular volume, Elements and Electrons A distinction must be drawn between transmutation and transformation the former may be understood to refer to a change accomplished by human agency the latter, to a change over which no control may be exercised (143). 

Here the effect of the (3 emission is to increase the atomic number by 1 (i.e., to transmute X into the next heaviest element in the periodic table, Y), to leave the atomic weight unchanged (a so-called isobaric transmutation), and to emit the (3 particle, which is conventionally given a mass of 0 and a charge of —1. Although it does not actually happen like this, it is often useful to think of the (3 process as being the conversion of a neutron into two equal but oppositely charged particles, the proton and the electron, as follows ... 

Like many other alchemists, Boyle distinguished between two kinds of transmutation, particular transmutation and projection. Transmutation was any conversion of one metal into another. It was held to be far easier than projection, which meant using the Philosopher s Stone to transmute a base metal into gold. It was thought that the Stone could transmute a quantity of metal that was hundreds or thousands of times greater than the Stone s weight. 

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