[hnuser123456]

No, but in the Medieval days, it was a common hobby to try to figure it out, called Alchemy. They figured lead and gold were otherwise so similar, why can't you just... convert it? Because it requires nuclear physics instruments, or neutron stars. Some suspected it might be complicated, maybe impossibly so. Imagine going back to the 1500s and telling one of those guys "yes, it is possible, but it's not as simple as melting lead and mixing in some gold starter... first, you need to understand superconductors, supercomputers, subatomic physics..."

[dredmorbius]

Irony is that Newton was seriously pursuing alchemy. The whole gravity thing was a side quest.

Turns out though that gravity was the philosopher's stone he was looking for.

[kijin]

Gravity is boring, at least in Newtonian physics. It involves a whole bunch of calculation but not much to experiment with IRL.

Alchemy on the other hand was the perfect hobby for any medieval or early modern nerd. Alchemists were basically trying to hack chemistry together. There was a promise of gold, sprinkled with an air of mystery, with lots of booms and bangs along the way. It must have felt like Dungeons and Dragons.