Although the article is certainly worth reading, the title suggests that the alchemy has actually been achieved (in the author's broad sense), while the post deals with a theoretical possibility.
"And they are not truly achieving the alchemists' dream of transmutation, just changing the behavior of the material."
Is there really a difference? Isn't the name we give a material essentially just a shorthand for describing a pattern of behavior that its constituent particles are (mostly) adhering to?
Speaking of which, did Seaborg collect any of the gold atoms he transmuted? Obviously it wouldn't be enough to see, but I imagine that some university museum has a little vial with a chunk of detector in it with a little plate explaining that there are a few million transmuted gold atoms stuck to its surface, or something.
Yes, as always with these things there has been a bit of journalistic licence taken. There will always be a gap between what has been rigorously demonstrated, and the potential future you want to sell!
At the moment we're up to the stage of having a theoretical framework for how to manipulate a given property through a driving field, along with some computational demonstrations that the method works. The major point is that the equations one derives from this method are quite broadly applicable, and generally speaking if you can show they work in silico, then a real-world implementation shouldn't be too far behind.
I tend to associate alchemy with elemental transformation, e.g. lead into gold, fission, or fusion.
This article does not describe that level of transformation. Rather it's about making "lead behave like gold" as a material, but not as a lustrous metal of ravenous hording.
