Alchemy

[RJM Corbet]

ALCHEMY? Oh come on, let's have it?
If Isaac Newton was into it, there must be something there?
What were those guys really looking for?
Remember they operated at a time when if the church didn't like you they made a bonfire of you ...

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

What were they looking for?



Well technically alchemy as an art and practice DOES exist-TECHNICALLY.


I'm not talking about the bull plop of turning lead into gold, but medicine and cooking are both technically alchemy. What Isaac Newton and such were looking for, were probably knowledge more than anything. Knowledge, and perhaps riches. And I might even be able to say more on the matter if I hadn't gotten only 3.5 hours of sleep.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Some were looking for gold, some for the perfect medicine that would cure all ills including old age (the Elixir of Life), some were seeking esoteric knowledge of the mechanics of the universe, and others were seeking spiritual enlightenment, which would then confer all of the above. At the same time, many were also looking for practical applications, medicines, pigments, etc. while they were waiting for their alchemical experiments to mature (many of those took a long, long time, because they involved slowly heating things for weeks or months).

A great many of their "experiments" were actually demonstrations, like the experiments kids do in their chemistry classes: they wanted to see the principles involved in action. But for the alchemist these observations were supposed to lead them to a higher understanding of ideas we would consign to philosophy or religion. The practice of alchemy did occasionally lead to trouble with the Church, because the alchemist might stray into territory considered to be heresy or black magic, but they were most of them men of deep religious principles* -- some were even clerics. Their symbolic language spoke of Greek and Roman gods, but these were metaphors for metals, processes, etc. Since the science of alchemy was already old by the Middle Ages, medieval alchemists were still using symbolism that dated back to classical times. This language was obscure, because they believed that those who deserved to understand (by their virtue, by their diligence in seeking knowledge) would understand.

Newton, I believe, was more magician than alchemist.



*These were the ones who were making a sincere effort to perfect the art. But just as the practice of medicine attracted charlatans, alchemy attracted con men who were working the lead into gold angle to get others to invest money in their little ventures. There were also those who were called "puffers" for the diligence with which they worked their bellows to keep the fires going. These weren't interested in the science or the philosophy. They simply wanted to make gold and become rich.

 

[Ursa major]

But for the alchemist these observations were supposed to lead them to a higher understanding of ideas we would consign to philosophy or religion.

In fact, before the term, scientist, was invented in the early nineteenth century, those studying nature and the physical universe were often called Natural Philosophers.

 

[Nik]

My feeling was they were both trying to understand the universe and gain power over it. They made progress by accident until the rudiments of chemistry developed...

One gotcha: The infamous Philosopher's Stone that reputedly turned base metals to gold *could* have been a primitive electric cell...
Baghdad Battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[skeptical]

Isaac Newton was a mega-genius. But he was also a man of his time, and it was impossible back then to avoid superstition's influence. So Newton was, among other things, a very superstitious man.

My favourite is the colours of the rainbow. Did you learn that at school? ROY G BIV, or Richard of York gave battle in vain, as mnemonic for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

One small problem. If you actually look very hard at a rainbow, or prism spectrum, you realise there are only six colours. There is no indigo. So why did Newton say seven?

In fact, that was pure superstition. In those days, seven was regarded as a mystical number - God's own number. Thus, there had to be seven colours, even if one need be invented for the job.

 

[Interference]

For those interested:

YouTube - Alchemy - Sacred Secrets Revealed Part 1/8

Talking about turning lead into gold was purely allegorical at the time. The Pope wouldn't have approved.

 

[woodsman]

Wasn't Newton quite religous as well? There have been some huge pillars of science- Newton & Einstein being the favourites but, they're in no way infallible.

I think it is possible to turn other metals into gold, at great expense and most easily from platinum so it's not worth it, using nuclear decay(?). I guess if we ever get fusion on the go we could potentially make gold thataways as well.

 

[skeptical]

Atoms heavier than iron are made in supernova explosions. Ordinary suns are too weak to achieve that, the energy demands are so great.

Still think we might be able to make gold?

 

[woodsman]

haha possibly, I just won't be the pulling the trigger...

Okay we'll stick with mercury and irradiation.

 

[Vertigo]

I think even things like Iron only start being made at the very end of most stars' life cycles. Most of their life is spend converting Hydrogen to Helium it is only the significantly heavier stars that are capable of fusing heavier elements up to Iron and then elements heavier than that, as skeptical says, are only formed when the star goes supernova. Also remember that most (I think) stars are not massive enough to go supernova. Our sun will not for example. It will become a red giant and then eventually throw off its outer layer to form a nebula and eventually cool into a white dwarf.

Interestingly, the fact that our solar system contains heavy elements indicates that supernovae have occurred here before. Our sun is probably the third star to exist in this cosmic neighbourhood, and our solar system formed from the particles left over from prior stars destroying themselves in spectacular manner

​

I guess that makes supernovae the ultimate alchemists!​

​

 

[RJM Corbet]

... Newton, I believe, was more magician than alchemist.

Yes, he was a mystical person. I hated him at school, he was so dry and boring. But he wasn't really like that at all.
He's listed on Wikipaedia, among the 100 most influential people in history, as 2nd -- below Mohammed and above Jesus Christ, followed by Buddha and Confucius in 4th and 5th place respectively.
His father couldn't read or write. Isaac Newton was very religious, yet no wimp. He beat up a bully at school and rubbed his nose against a stone wall. He used to keep a book of all his sins, which included 'striking many.' He managed to get into Cambridge University, taught himself mathematics, because in those days it wasn't even a subject, paid little attention to the classical subjects, barely scraped through his exams -- and two years later, at the age of 18yrs, had streaked ahead of all the other mathematicians and invented calculus, whatever that is. A year Later Cambridge instituted the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, acknowledging mathematics, so to speak, and five years later Newton inherited the Chair from Isaac Barrow. Prof Stephen Hawkin now holds the same Chair.
The word 'alchemy' is derived from the Egyptian heiroglyph KHMI, which was a version of the Egyptian name for Egypt itself -- to which was added the Arabic definitive article Al.
Very ancient.
Isaac Newton, surely everyone agrees, was not a gullible man.
So why was he dabbling in pseudo-science?
What were the 'true' alchemists really looking for?
I am not ignoring the rest of your (true) observations, Teresa, just zooming in on Newton, for now

 

[Vertigo]

He wasn't being gullible at all by his times. In his day the dividing line between science and what we would now call superstition wasn't just grey, it barely existed. This is what they were just beginning to define; just what was real and provable and what wasn't. Alchemy was pretty much the chemistry of the day.

 

[RJM Corbet]

For those interested:

YouTube - Alchemy - Sacred Secrets Revealed Part 1/8

Talking about turning lead into gold was purely allegorical at the time. The Pope wouldn't have approved.

Thanks. Great.

He wasn't being gullible at all by his times. In his day the dividing line between science and what we would now call superstition wasn't just grey, it barely existed. This is what they were just beginning to define; just what was real and provable and what wasn't. Alchemy was pretty much the chemistry of the day.

Yes, it was the chemistry of the day. And yes, it was all mixed up with mysticism. I'm just suggesting perhaps there was a lot more to it than that? Have you had a look at the above YouTube? While I've gotya online: 42? C'mon, please? 42?

 

[Vertigo]

Ah sorry RJM - I thought you had caught the reference - it is the answer to Life The Universe and Everything according to Douglas Adams in The Hitchikers Guide the Universe. A race built this huge computer the size of a planet to answer the question and it came up with the answer 42. When they complained it said they hadn't asked the right question! When asked what the question was it said it would take another generation or two to figure that out for them!

 

[Nik]

"So why did Newton say seven ?"

According to Wiki (YMMV), he suggested five, then upped it to seven to match musical notes...

IMHO, there's also the possibility that a bystander commented that there were more than five colours: Seems that a proportion of the population are *tetrachromatic* due to a mutation on X-chromosome, so see a slightly wider range than us trichromats...
Wiki led me to a thought-provoking paper...
http://www.klab.caltech.edu/cns186/papers/Jameson01.pdf

 

[RJM Corbet]

Ah sorry RJM - I thought you had caught the reference - it is the answer to Life The Universe and Everything according to Douglas Adams in The Hitchikers Guide the Universe. A race built this huge computer the size of a planet to answer the question and it came up with the answer 42. When they complained it said they hadn't asked the right question! When asked what the question was it said it would take another generation or two to figure that out for them!

Oh! Thank you. No, I read another story, titled 'The Meaning of Life', in which the number 42 came up, obviously a deliberate cross reference by the author, who is a member of this forum. Thanks Vertigo

 

[Vertigo]

You're welcome RJM; if you like the sense of humour in them, the books are great, but the humour is somewhat off the wall. I loved them!

Re the number of colours, I don't think it is too important. There are, of course, not 5 or 7 or any absolute number of colours and I'm sure Newton was well aware of that; it is a continuous spread of all the frequencies in the visible electromagnetic spectrum. Where you decide to put boundaries (and how many) between the "colours" is purely an arbitrary decision for convenience.

And Newton did indeed increase his "number" of colours in the spectrum from 5 to 7 (adding orange and indigo) in order to match them to the notes in the major scale in music. However he could have as easily listed 25 colours, if he could have dreamt up names for them.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Newton was the first to analyse the spectrum of white light, to realize that the different colours of light refract at at different angle (ie: red bends at a greater angle than blue) and that the colour 'red' is emitted by an object that absorbs the rest of the spectrum, except for red. He invented that. It was one of the first, earliest, things he did. C'mon ...

 

[Vertigo]

Sorry I think you have misunderstood me. I didn't say he didn't discover the spectrum of light... of course he did. I merely said that splitting the spectrum into 7 discreet colours or 5 or 10 or a hundred is completely arbitrary and that he certainly appreciated that. In fact he drew a circular diagram (following the lead of painter colour circles) to illustrate where he had placed those divisions.