Re: Gold
Not by alchemists , by physicists:
Transmutation of lead into gold isn’t just theoretically possible - it has been achieved! There are reports that Glenn Seaborg, 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, succeeded in transmuting a minute quantity of lead (possibly en route from bismuth, in 1980) into gold. There is an earlier report (1972) in which Soviet physicists at a nuclear research facility near Lake Baikal in Siberia accidentally discovered a reaction for turning lead into gold when they found the lead shielding of an experimental reactor had changed to gold.
Source
In 1980, Glenn Theodore Seaborg transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.[21]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_T._Seaborg#cite_note-20) His experimental technique, using nuclear physics, was able to remove protons and neutrons from the bismuth atoms.