Supervisor: Hans Fynbo

"How to make money as a physicist?"

That question arises naturally towards the end of a physics student's education, and in this colloquium I will finally give an answer.

I will give a description and a short history of the kinds of monies that exist, before turning to the kind of money that is central for this colloquium: Gold!

Gold is one of the heaviest stable elements, so there is not a lot of it in the universe. I will explain how gold is created by the rapid neutron-capture process, which mainly happens when two neutron stars merge with each other.

Finally I will talk about "Chrysopoeia", the art of creating gold. It has been attempted for thousands of years, but has only been possible with the modern understanding of nuclear physics. Adding neutrons to mercury, shooting bismuth with carbon or neon, or simply detonating an nuclear bomb? There are many ways to exploit physics in order to create gold, and I will happily share what I know.