Seems like a lot of work. What if I just make boron instead? Everyone likes boron.

I thought a boron was the particle corresponding to the tedium field.

its the name. boron sounds like a combination of boring and moron. who wants boron?

Nobody doesn't like molten boron! ;-)

And yet they made a whole movie about it, with Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, and Gary Oldman.

you forgot to mention the most successful star of that show, chris tucker.

Or a particle accelerator, some bismuth, and low expectations of quantities.

I thought I remembered a method using radioactive mercury instead, but yeah, not really fun times.

He literally made the Philosopher's Stone, although uneconomical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_T._Seaborg

"""In 1980, he transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth-209 into gold (197 Au) at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. His experimental technique, using the lab's Bevalac particle accelerator, was able to remove protons and neutrons from the bismuth atoms by bombarding it with carbon and neon nuclei traveling near the speed of light.[47] Seaborg's technique would have been far too expensive to enable routine manufacturing of gold, but his work was close to the mythical Philosopher's Stone.[48][49] As gold has four fewer protons and (taking the only naturally occurring bulk isotopes of either) eight fewer neutrons than bismuth, a total of twelve nucleons have to be removed from the bismuth nucleus to produce gold using Seaborg's method."""

the building where plutonium was first synthesized still exists ont he berkeley campus although IIRC they had to clean it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilman_Hall#Room_307

Just asking for a friend: How much bismuth might there be in a bale of straw and does it depend on the source of the straw?

Hold my beer, I think I have one of those in my backyard.