Cosmic Alchemy and Stellar Gold?
An interesting story about the merging of neutron stars (who did not bother to consult the Federal Trade Commission on their merger) involved some interesting information on their history and detection. This necessitates material on gravity waves, and some of Uncle Albert Einstein's work. From there, we were given some Big Bang cosmogony, chemistry, and chemistry's weird great grandfather that nobody likes to talk about: alchemy. The Alchemist / David Teniers the Younger Way back yonder in medieval times, some folks were attempting sciencey stuff by attempting to convert base metals (copper, lead, tin, and so forth) into gold. Imagine the devastating impact on economies if they succeeded! Alchemy was distantly related to chemistry for reasons that should seem obvious. We get exceptionally dense neutron stars commencing to merge, and the interaction supposedly produced a passel of gold. Problem is, it's all based on Big Bang presuppositions on the origin of the uni