Jim Baen's Universe

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We Will Transmute the Elements

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

There was a time, in humanity’s dim past, before the invention of cooking, when our ability to produce a chemical reaction was limited almost exclusively to fire. There was no subtlety in this; either we burned an object or we didn't.

Thousands of years of accumulated knowledge have granted us a thorough understanding of the underlying nature of atoms and of the chemical bonds which hold them together to form molecules. Because of this understanding we can produce chemical reactions which will yield almost any stable or semi-stable or even unstable chemical substance that we desire. The variety of possible combinations extends into the millions. Our understanding is so complete that we can predict, using paper or software, the outcome of a chemical reaction without troubling ourselves to test the process with chemicals. We have also become proficient at expanding small tabletop processes to industrial scales which often involve producing a chemical reaction in thousands of tons of material per day, every day. Our sophistication and subtlety has passed beyond the power and, very likely, the boldest imaginings of our former selves who either burned an object or didn't.

We find ourselves, however, squirming in their shoes concerning our ability to produce reactions involving the subatomic particles which compose an atom’s nucleus. When it comes to nuclei, we can fuse some of them or fission some of them or do nothing. Our subtlety is limited.

But this will not always be the case.

Centuries from now—some might say millennia—we will accumulate a depth and breadth of knowledge which will allow us to manipulate subatomic particles with the same intricacy of skill that today we apply to chemicals. We will develop methods of combining and separating protons and neutrons to produce any stable or semi-stable combination that we desire. This means we will be able to make any chemical element from any other chemical element. The technical term for this is transmutation of elements.

The reason it will take so long is that our means of interacting with the material world—our bodies and the tools we have traditionally made—are all composed of atoms instead of nucleons (protons and neutrons). Atoms and nucleons are so radically different in their behavior, energy, size and rules of interaction that the differences yield many serious problems for which most of the answers are not yet in sight.

The force which holds atoms to one another, for example, is about two million times weaker than the force which holds nucleons to one another. Even our most powerful tools, by comparison, are exceedingly frail.

An equally daunting problem has annoyed physicists for so long that they’ve given it a name: containment. Nucleons are extremely difficult to grab or touch or confine in any container with walls made only of atoms. This problem is bad enough at room temperature, but when nucleons are being combined or separated (by definition, nuclear reactions) the energies become huge and the difficulty of containing them becomes similarly huge.

Overcoming these and the many other engineering problems will be extremely difficult, but it would be even more difficult to pretend that their difficulty is infinite. They can delay success, maybe even delay it for a very long time, but they can not prevent it forever. Eventually this technology will be made real.

Some transmutation processes will liberate vast quantities of energy. Others will require the input of energy which is similarly vast.

For those which require the input of vast energy, we will likely provide it using a separate process which yields energy in a near equal amount. This is what we have done traditionally for chemical reactions. The tradition is very old, at least as old as the invention of cooking. If a desired chemical reaction required a lot of energy we placed it directly above a separate chemical reaction which gave it the energy it needed. Even today this secondary chemical reaction is often just a fire.

The rise of transmutation technology will alter civilization by completely eliminating two forms of scarcity. The first of these will concern energy. Even in its earliest and most primitive stages it will provide quantities of usable energy beyond anything human beings have ever possessed or even considered that they might want. Long before the technology reaches maturity, portable consumer devices the size of a watch battery will produce more electricity than the average American draws from the power grid wired into his house. Yet because the tiny devices will be manufactured using transmutation’s cheap energy and materials, they will not be repaired if they stop working. They will be considered disposable.

The second scarcity this technology will eliminate—which will be possible only because of the vast energy produced by the first—is the scarcity of elements which are rare on earth, in our solar system and in this universe. Expanding our methods of transmutation to an industrial scale, we will build factories which churn out vast quantities of any chemical element we desire. Gold, silver, platinum will all be as common as we wish them to be. Why anyone would want streets or houses made of gold I do not know, but if it's worth doing we will be able to do it. Also during this time period, dangerously radioactive elements will no longer be buried in the ground or hidden in caves; instead they will be transmuted into elements which are not radioactive, and so can provide no danger.

This may sound like the final technological revolution our civilization will go through, but it’s not. Beyond it stand more levels of nature’s secrets for us to penetrate. Each penetration will once again redesign our civilization’s future. And there will always be more.

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You can learn more about Stephen Euin Cobb here, or here.

And more about his podcast: The Future And You here, or here, or even here.