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While it’s likely others had tried it before, the first surviving documented attempt of someone trying to turn something to gold in a (relatively) scientific fashion occurred around 300 AD. The protoscientist in question was a GrecoEgyptian named Zosimos. During his lifetime, it’s thought that he wrote nearly thirty books about alchemy, but most of them have been lost to history.

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Sources:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...
https://www.sciencehistory.org/histor...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
http://www2.lbl.gov/Publications/Seab...
https://www.aaas.org/blog/scientia/gl...
https://www.sciencehistory.org/distil...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/79...
http://www.nasonline.org/publications...
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&...
https://escholarship.org/content/qt7p...
https://www.popsci.com/diy/article/20...
https://www.livescience.com/39451bis...
https://www.livescience.com/39314alc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine131