If different substances on earth are what they are because of the amount of protons then why can't we...?

Question

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turn certain elements into others by either taking or removing protons? Is it theoretically possible to turn hydrogen into gold by adding enough protons? Is the reason this is impossible because there would be a release of atomic energy like a nuclear bomb?

I realize this is impractical for wealth-building even if its somehow possible because gold isn't worth much in the (femto???)-technology scale.

Answer 1

This is more than just theoretical. This is done all the time in particle accelerators. Most of the actinide series elements are purely human made and not found in nature. The reason this isn't done for 'wealth-building' is because the cost to make new elements by colliding them is incredibly expensive and it produces very very small amounts of the new element. We simply don't have the technology at the moment to build things at the atomic scaale with anything other than brute force.

Answer 2

We have been doing transmutation of elements for many years already. That's why we have plutonium and technetium, both of which are man-made elements. And the first guy was right about the fission and fusion.

When elements are transmuted, we don't simply add single protons. We 'smash' nuclei together if that is how a layman might describe it.

I think it is possible to turn hydrogen into gold. The creation of gold and other heavy nuclei happens during supernova burst though it happens in a series of steps(basically, supermassive stars can't fuse iron nuclei because the binding energy per nucleon of an iron nucleus causes it to be the most stable nucleus so the creation of heavy nuclei need something as energetic as a supernova)However, the energy needed to do it is astronomically expensive and insanely huge, worth more than the gold they could actually produce.

Answer 3

It is theoretically possible, however the amount of energy that would be needed would be enormous to change it each step in the periodic table. There would not be a problem with a release of atomic energy, as the energy would be adsorbed by the element rather than being released in the process.

Answer 4

Each time that you make a fusion (adding different nuclei) or a fission (splitting a nucleus) an huge amount of energy is lost or gained. This requires to much energy to be safe and would be to expansive to realize