Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Alchemy



"The science in which Newton seems to have been chiefly interested, and on which he spent most of his time was alchemy." -- Arthur S. Eddington, physicist, 1938

"For many centuries scholars thought that chemical elements were stable and could not be transformed. This is why the alchemists were regarded as dreamers, charlatans, or idiots. But in the year 1919 the great English physicist Rutherford sided with the alchemists and transmuted nitrogen into oxygen and hydrogen by bombarding it with helium. That was the day of the vindication of the alchemical doctrine of transmutation." -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971

"The Roman emperor Diocletian issued an edict in Egypt around A.D. 300, demanding that all books on 'the art of making gold and silver' be burned. The decree shows that the Roman government was certain that such an art existed. It would surely have been unnecessary to issue decrees banning this craft unless it were known to have been practiced." -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971

"The words chemistry and alchemy are derived from the name of Egypt -- Khemt." -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971

"The basic ingredient of Chinese alchemy was cinnabar or mercuric sulfide...." -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971

"The opinion current among the practitioners of the alchemical art in China, India, Egypt, and Western Europe -- that mercury and sulfur had unusual properties for transmutation -- is really baffling. After all, it was a long way from Peking to Alexandria, and from Benares to medieval Paris. What was the primary source of this doctrine?" -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971

"All these prohibitions on alchemy are very bewildering. A 'No smoking' sign in a train is put up because people have cigarettes in their pockets. What was the reason for these 'No goldmaking' orders? If there were no cases of illegal transmutation, it surely would not have been worthwhile wasting expensive parchment on long, sternly worded decrees." -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971

"It is noteworthy that, according to ancient alchemy, gold was made from mercury or lead. In the periodic table of elements, the atomic number of gold is 79, that of mercury 80, and of lead 82 -- in other words they are neighbors. It was Mendeleyeff who in 1879 first formulated a table of the elements and arranged them in order of increasing weight according to their atomic structure. The question is -- had the alchemists discovered the table before Mendeleyeff?" -- Andrew Tomas, author, 1971

"Thus it seems that Anaxilaus believed that Democritus was involved in the imitation of silver...." -- Jackson P. Hershbell, professor, March 1987

"Transmutation of lead into gold isn't just theoretically possible - it has been achieved!" -- Anne M. Helmenstine, chemist, May 2001

"The modern interpretation of Newton is about as far as could possibly be from what Newton himself thought." -- Simon Schaffer, professor, November 15th 2005

"On the one hand, we can recognize him [Newton] as a scientist [alchemist], but on the other hand, he's pursuing an activity which we now label as a pseudoscience [gravitational physics]." -- Pamela Smith, professor, November 15th 2005

"Our project now must be to see Newton the way that Newton was, rather than trying to see Newton the way we want him to be." -- James Force, professor, November 15th 2005

"...we now know that most of the great minds of the period were involved in alchemy, including Robert Boyle, John Locke, Leibniz, any number of others." -- Bill Newman, historian, November 15th 2005

"There's a tradition of scholarship that was very popular in the Renaissance called the prisca sapientia, the primal wisdom. It claimed that there was a secret wisdom that was first transmitted by an archetypical figure—say, for example, Moses—and then passed down through a line of successors, usually including Pythagoras, Plato, and so forth, and that this wisdom was really the ultimate tool for understanding the universe. Newton clearly believed that." -- Bill Newman, historian, November 15th 2005

"There's no question that they [Newton's papers] were considered to be borderline scandalous. Newton died in 1727. By that time you're well into the Enlightenment, and alchemy had become the domain of dunces; it was associated with all sorts of useless medieval knowledge. So the fact that Newton had been a serious student of this obsolete and idiotic field was really problematic." -- Bill Newman, historian, November 15th 2005

Aleklett, K., et al., Energy dependence of 209Bi fragmentation in relativistic nuclear collisions, Physical Review C, Volume 23, Issue 3, Pages 1044-1046, 1981

8 comments:

Quantum_Flux said...

How about fusing 13 silver atoms together?

Anaconda said...

Actually, turning lead into gold is hard because lead is 82 and gold is 79.

Transmutation is most easily accomplished by addition, not substraction.

Take metals with lower atomic weights than gold and it can be done.

But oxygen will transmute into sulphur, that's why people smell sulphur around ligtning strikes.

The key is electricity, pressure, and temperature.

Also, a little known fact: A chicken egg as it develops into a chick transmutes calcium.

The fertilized egg has so much calcium. The egg is sealed, yet when the chick is born, there is much more calcium (in the bones) than when it started, and no, it doesn't get any calcium from the shell.

Biological transmution.

Electro-thermal-pressure transmutation.

Likely, the sulphur that comes out of fumaroles has transmuted from oxygen during chemical reactions in the crust (many minerals have oxygen as a component).

There is much scientific potential for transmutation.

Transmutation can and has been carried out in the laboratory.

There is evidence that "cold fusion" is really a transmutation process.

OilIsMastery said...

Anaconda,

I've missed ya!

I replied to your planetary birth thread here....=)

Jeffery Keown said...

Anaconda,
You're only wrong by decades.

The mechanism for mobilizing calcium from the shell has not been elucidated but it is assumed to be similar to the mechanism responsible for resorbing calcium from bone (Gay et al. 1984; Zaidi et al. 1993). Presumably, protons produced by dissociation of carbonic acid cause liberation of calcium from the calcareous layer of the shell. The calcium released from the shell then diffuses along a film of water coating the fibres of the shell membranes to the CAM and is transported into the vasculature (Packard and Packard, 1984; Tuan et al. 1991).

MOBILIZATION OF SHELL CALCIUM BY THE CHICK
CHORIOALLANTOIC MEMBRANE IN VITRO
.

Likely, the sulphur that comes out of fumaroles has transmuted from oxygen during chemical reactions in the crust (many minerals have oxygen as a component).

I do not see where you are coming from on this one. Yes, atomic transmutation is entirely possible, but the two examples you give are way off. Can you give a citation on the second one?

Anaconda said...

@ Jeffery Keown:

I can't challenge your authorities and their explanation.

So, I stand down and associate with the physical explanation you provided.

Good job!

As to the fumaroles, this is my own idea based on the physical properties & relationships present in the subterranean regions below the fumaroles.

As suggested in the previous comment, there is present electrical energy, high pressure, and high temperature.

Sulphur on average is relatively rare, but in conjunction with the aforementioned physical conditions sulphur is abundant.

Plus, the smell of sulphur in the vicinity of lightning strikes is well documented from the time of Franklin.

Quantum_Flux said...

If you bombarded a lead atom with a proton, wouldn't it decay an alpha particle?

Anaconda said...

@ Jeffery Keown:

I need an addendum:

No I didn't come up with transmutation out of thin air.

Here is a link to a long post thread on transmutation:

Transmutation on Stars, Planets etc

Some of the ideas presented in the thread are obviously better than others.

There is a discussion on oxygen transmuting to sulphur (and yes, reference to the il-fated chicken transmutation).

But there is a whole lot more:

Links to references for transmuting matter into gold and silver and a whole series of other transmutations.

Also, there is reference to laboratory experiments (small scale) where matter is transmuted at the surface of electrodes.

When you think about it electricity would be the way to transmute matter.

There are also references to electrical, pressure, and temperature transmutations in the laboratory.

Many molecules will split under electrolysis, but that is without pressure or temperature. Pressure is mostly likely the key for successful transmutation of elements, however the oxygen to sulphur transmutation seems to happen at atmosphereic pressure, under lightning conditions, as well.

The laboratory work is generally small scale by independent researchers.

(Why do we get scientific breakthroughs on a regular basis by independent researchers? I suggest freedom of thought to explore the possibilities...something to think about generally. That is if you want scientific breakthroughs...)

Interestingly, the experimental apparatus which can conduct these type experiments is now more available than in the past.

And all three parameters, electricity, pressure, and temperature can be controlled for in a series of experiments.

(Do you think the government would publically announce the transmutation of gold & silver or would it keep it private?)

(Again, interestingly enough, in a similar line of thought, one could experiment with molecules composed with carbon and hydrogen in a series of controlled experiments to test whether hydrocarbons, crude oil, could be synthesized this way. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the oil companies are already experimenting along these lines in secret. Such success would lend convincing scientific evidence to Abiotic Oil theory. Again, do you think oil companies would publically announce their positive findings or keep it private?)

Anyhow, happy hunting.

Anaconda said...

@ OilIsMastery:

OilIsMastery wrote: "Anaconda,

I've missed ya!"

I appreciate that, I enjoy commenting on this website as you know.

Where have I been?

Watching...but not compelled to comment on recent topics.