[dragonwriter]

> Is there not a way to synthesize gold, like how diamonds can be synthesized (obviously a different process.)

To convert other forms of carbon into diamond, you just need to simulate the conditions in which diamonds are formed (heat and pressure inside the earth.)

To convert other elements to gold, you just have to simulate the conditions in which gold is formed, which, as a heavy element, I'm pretty sure is reproducing a nuclear process that occurs in large stars or possibly supernovae, i.e., something you can reproduce only on Earth only on a very small scale using particle accelerators (or maybe nuclear weapons.)

[bobz]

Actually, only a supernova or equivalent energy magnitude event.

Fusion only releases energy up to iron. Creating heavier elements consume energy in the reaction rather than releasing it, therefore cannot sustain a reaction.

[rtkwe]

There are a tiny number of ways but they're all so fantastically expensive it's pointless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#G...

[mtdewcmu]

Fission goes the opposite way. Heavier elements than iron release energy.

I think the inside of a star is not perfectly clear-cut. Various elements get created and cycle, with only the energetically-favorable ones accumulating. It's not altogether unlike chemistry.

What little I know of this comes from wikipedia, but I think there are other ways to synthesize elements apart from fission and fusion. Sometimes they simply catch a neutron, and the decay of a particle produces a different element.