[baudrunner]

On the subject of alchemy, it concerns the creation of gold from the other elements using laboratory apparatus and other elements with known properties of reaction with each another, for that is what dreamers wanted of the practice of chemistry. Alchemists were cranks, not scientists. Mother Nature is not a crank.

The closest that one can come to alchemy today is the creation of gold by way of the bombardment of the element Bismuth with protons. It is highly cost ineffective because it was estimated to cost about a quadrillion dollars to produce about a gram of gold that way back in the sixties and it was no more than an interesting diversion for the nuclear research physicists at the time. For all we know, they might still be trying to produce that gram of gold. That's alchemy for you.