What is nuclear transmutation?

occurs when atoms of one element are converted into atoms of a different element. Back in the very old days, alchemists believed that they could turn iron or lead into gold (or said they could, anyhow, in order to get people to give them money). They couldn't, which made the people who gave them money angry.

Nowadays, just about any nuclear process results in transmutation of some kind (notable exception: gamma decay). For example, when uranium-235 undergoes , it forms thorium-231.

There has been some research in how to make this process occur with nuclear waste, but as yet not a lot of success. Nuclear reactions take a lot of energy to get started, and if you're making this energy with radioactive materials, that kind of misses the point.

OK.