Illustrated Glossary of Organic Chemistry

Transmute: To convert one chemical element into another chemical element such as lead into gold. The dream of alchemists (including Isaac Newton) for many centuries, but not actually achieved until the early 20^th century, when in 1938 Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered that uranium is susceptible to nuclear fission, yielding atoms of lower mass elements such as barium and krypton.

Many alchemists sought the philosopher's stone, a magical substance with many mystical properties, including the potential for conversion of base metals such as lead into precious metals such as gold.


Transuranium elements are produced by transmutation. For example, Glenn Seaborg (UCLA AB 1933; Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1951) was the first to produce americium by transmutation of plutonium.