Maybe not in the classic sense of turning iron to gold, but hear me out.

This actually hit me back in grade school when we first learned about basic chemistry.

1) If all matter is essentially made up of the same stuff--protons, neutrons, and electrons--in different arrangements, couldn't there logically be some way to rearrange the particles into any substance we want?

2) Given the laws of conservation of both matter an energy, the resources we "use up" don't just magically disappear. They are either misplaced or transformed, So shouldn't we be able to some how recover the matter and energy in some way?

These two combined give me the impression that we should some how be able to turn anything into whatever we want, displacing less desirable or more abundant materials into ones of greater use.

I'm not so naive to think that it would be so simplistic. Obviously the actual process, feasibility and practicality is much more complicated, but simple logic seems to say that there must be some, if very advanced, way to create a sustainable resource cycle, much like every other sustainable cycle in nature.