Transmutation of metals into gold

Multipliers. Here Newton was referring to the legislation enacted during the reign of Henry IV that outlawed the transmutation of metals into gold and silver. Boyle had been instrumental in getting it repealed. 

Since the alchemists considered natural antimony minerals to be the most suitable raw material for the transmutation of metals into gold, alchemical literature abounds in references to antimony (65). The most famous of the early monographs on this element is the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, which first appeared in 1604, in German. Johann Tholde, operator of a saltworks in Frankenhausen, Thuringia, the editor of this work, claimed that it had been written by a fifteenth-century Benedictine monk, Basilius Valentinus (3, 6). Since no conclusive evidence of the existence of this monk has been unearthed, and since the literary style... 

MIRACLE OF ART — The Powder of Projection at the White and at the Red, so called because Art can accomplish nothing more perfect in the efficacity of the influence that it exercises over the health of the human body, or more potent for the transmutation of Metals into Gold. 

You might think that this is purely a domestic situation, as if the opus—the alchemical transmutation of metals into gold and the appearance of the white bird of illumination— is reduced to women washing, something ordinary that must be done every day. The women say We do this, many, many times, which, of course, speaks directly to our work as analysts. We know how many times we have to go over the same problem. People say Oh, I finally understand it for the first time. Once is not enough and that is simply the way it is with this kind of process. Once you understand that, it seems natural instead of being a defeat. 

Basilius Valentinus is also said to have written Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. However, it has been questioned if this really is a work by a monk in the 1400s. It seems too modern for the 15 century and was in fact published by Johann Tholde in Germany in 1604. In the monograph it is emphasized that antimony minerals are the most suitable raw materials for the transmutation of metals into gold. 

A retired fireman, tortured by the disappearance of his flamboyant wife, becomes obsessed with the art of alchemy—the science of transmuting base metals into gold... 

While Paracelsus often maintained that attempting to transmute base metals into gold was a waste of time, he nevertheless attempted the transmutation himself. He accepted the then-common idea that metals grew inside the Earth and that, given enough time, all of them would eventually become gold. If other metals transformed themselves into gold naturally, then it seemed only reasonable that the transformation could be made to happen by artificial means. 

The art of chemistry developed from the practice of alchemy, which was aimed at the production of certain potent agents, which in their pure form, were believed to transmute base metals into gold and hold the key to human immortality. The theories behind alchemy were closely linked to the occult and recognized sympathetic links between a special number of gods, and the same number of heavenly bodies, metals, minerals and the manipulations of alchemy. As a working hypothesis matter was considered made up of the three elements mercury, sulphur and salt, subject to the activity of spirits, such as fire. 

Upon her failure to provide Julius of Brunswick with her recipe for transmuting base metals into gold, Julius had Marie arrested. 

The Stone is said to have the power to cure all sickness, give back lost youth, and to transmute other metals into gold. The old Adepts constantly assure us of its physical reality. There are exhibits in several European Museums, which are reportedly alchemically made gold. Even up to our current times, reports of successful transmutations are found. 

In the Middle Ages, many early chemists tried to change, or transmute, ordinary metals into gold. Although they made many discoveries that contributed to the development of modern chemistry, their attempts to transmute metals were doomed from the start. These early chemists did not realize that a transmutation, whereby one element changes into another, is a nuclear reaction. It changes the nucleus of an atom and therefore cannot be achieved by ordinary chemical means. 

Having reached the pinnacle of the plant work, the alchemist is ready to proceed further. While the Circulatum Minus effects an apparently miraculous transformation, the Greater Circulation is said to go one step beyond, actually transmuting elemental metals into gold. 

I hit what exactly is alchemy Even the origin and definition ()l the word are obscure. In China it represents the quest for immortality, in India it is the art of making medicines, while in (he West it is associated with the quest for the Philosopher s Stone, which transmutes base metals into gold. Alchemy is aU these things, and more besides. 

Absorbed in the long labor of a dual search— for the seeret that will enable him to transmute base metal into gold and to aehieve spiritual perfeetion— the alehemist pursued his involved experiments, laying the foundations for the seience, then still unborn, that we now know as chemistry. Often his experiments had unexpected results sometimes a new element would be isolated, sometimes a mixture went up with a bang. 

Many thousands of miles away on the other side of the world, the Chinese were also experimenting in alchemy. From this distance in time it is impossible to decide whether alchemy originated in the West and spread to China, or sprang up in China and spread to the West. It may be, of course, that it developed in both places independently. There were certainly some similarities between Western and Eastern alchemy. The Chinese also wanted to discover the secret of immortality, even though they were not on the whole as concerned with transmuting base metals into gold. 

Then came World War II. There were stories that a factoty for transmuting base metals into gold had been established in Saint Blaise on the French-Swiss border. Rumor further insisted that the Germans had found some way to bolster their sinking economy by the manufacture of gold. But no proof has ever been found. Meanwhile in England, in a crammed laboratory in the center of London, a modem alchemist claimed to have made the Philosopher s Stone. 

Alchemists spoke often of the philosopher s stone by which they hoped to transmute baser metals into gold. We re not quite sure what this illusory substance was. It probably... 

It is striking how the history of alchemy runs parallel to that of medicine. Its practitioners were often physicians and when classical medicine took refuge in the Islamic world from the upheavals and cultural decline in Western Europe, which followed on the fall of the Roman Empire, it was accompanied by alchemy. For many centuries, both medicine and alchemy survived and flourished in the Islamic countries and several of the leading names in Islamic medicine were also alchemists, the best known being Rhazes and Avicenna. It is worth noting that these medical paragons seem to have been more interested in the supposed ability of the philosopher s stone to cure disease, than in its use to transmute base metals into gold. When medicine eventually returned to Western Europe from the Arab Empire, alchemy followed in its footsteps. 

Sir Isaac Newton appears to have believed in the possibility of transmuting base metals into gold and to have kept furnaces going for many weeks with this end in view, sitting up at nights to attend to them. But after his appointment as Master of the Mint in 1699 it would hardly have been wise for him to allow his name to be associated with alchemy. The less said the better. At his death in... 

The dream of the alchemists of transmuting baser metals into gold was at last realized when, in 1941, Sherr, Bainbridge, and Anderson artificially produced gold from mercury. ... 

---