然而，黄金占地壳质量的十亿分之几。虽然提取大量黄金在经济上是不可行的，但在地球表面最高公里处有大约100万吨黄金。地幔和核心中的大量金矿是未知的，但它大大超过了地壳中的金量。炼金术士试图将铅（或其他元素）转化为黄金是不成功的，因为没有化学反应可以将一种元素转变为另一种元素。化学反应涉及元素之间的电子转移，这可能产生元素的不同离子，但原子核中质子的数量是其元素的定义。所有黄金原子都含有79个质子，因此黄金的原子数为79.制造黄金并不像直接添加或减去其他元素中的质子那么简单。将一个元素更改为另一个元素（嬗变）的最常用方法是将中子添加到另一个元素。中子改变元素的同位素，可能使原子不稳定，通过放射性衰变分解。
澳大利亚汤斯维尔论文代写：黄金原子
However, gold accounts for a billionth of the size of the earth’s crust. Although extracting large amounts of gold is not economically viable, there are about 1 million tons of gold at the highest kilometers on the surface of the earth. The large amount of gold in the mantle and core is unknown, but it greatly exceeds the amount of gold in the earth’s crust. Alchemists attempting to convert lead (or other elements) into gold is unsuccessful because there is no chemical reaction that can turn one element into another. Chemical reactions involve the transfer of electrons between elements, which may produce different ions of an element, but the number of protons in a nucleus is the definition of its element. All gold atoms contain 79 protons, so the atomic number of gold is 79. Making gold is not as simple as adding or subtracting protons from other elements. The most common way to change one element to another (mutation) is to add the neutron to another element. Neutrons alter the isotope of an element, which may destabilize the atom and decompose through radioactive decay.