Transmutation theory

Newman, William Royall. Corpuscular alchemy The transmutational theory of Eirenaeus Philalethes. Bull Hist Chem 13-14(1992-1993) 19-27. 

Newman, William Royall. "The corpuscular transmutational theory of Eirenaeus Philalethes." In Alchemy and chemistry in 16th and 17th century, eds. Plyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio, 161-182. Dordrecht Kluwer, 1994. 

W. R. Newman, Corpuscular alchemy the transmutational theory of Eirenaeus Philalethes , Bull. Hist. Chem., 1992-93,13-14, 19-27. 

The extent to which Stahl might have been attracted to alchemical transmutations may never be known for sure. Some writers absolutely refuse to think that there was any affinity between Stahl and alchemy at all. And yet, it is clear that whether or not he believed that transmutations were possible, Stahl was altogether informed about current transmutational theory and practice, and he may have been attracted to some of it. Many of his remarks follow from the comments of his favorite author, Johann Becher but some are also linked to the work of a French alchemist, well known in the seventeenth century, called Gaston Claveus. In fact, it is primarily from Claveus that Stahl in his writings records an alchemical process involving the combination of philosophical Mercury and philosophical Gold. ... 

That autumn, in Montreal, Rutherford began to make experimental measurements of the heat released by radioactive processes. From studies of the details of alpha emission he succeeded in identifying all the chain of decays through which U transmuted into a stable substance. He published his results in 1905 and, with that paper, the transmutation theory became a solid working hypothesis. It took account of what was known, explaining every variation in radioactivity that experiments could create. It established the new principle that a radioactive element could be identified by its half-life. 

Page [2] contains the full original title page. Introduction by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. "Alchemy is philosophy it is the philosophy, the seeking out of the Sophia in the mind." Theory of Transmutation The Golden Treatise The True Subject The Mysteries Experimental Method Manifestation of the Matter Mental Requisites and Impediments The Gross Work The Six Keys Rewards and Potencies... 

Sadler, J .L. How to change stone into gold atomic theory of the solar system. Christchurch (NZ) Stone into Gold Transmuting and Research Co Ltd, 1962. 68p. 

Principe, Lawrence M. "Evidence for transmutation in seventeenth-century alchemy." In Scientific evidence philosophical theories and applications, ed. Peter Achinstein. Baltimore (MD) Johns Hopkins Univ P, 2005. 

An analysis of his works and letters reveals that although in his youth Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was not fundamentally opposed to the transmutation of metals, he later treated with mockery his friends who tried to make gold. Though he believed in the theory of elementary change, he denied its practical application in the transmutation of metals to silver or gold... 

The author traces the positions that writers of histories of chemistry took toward alchemy as a total phenomenon, how they regarded the experimental-practical and philosophicoreligious components of it and what stand-points they adopted relative to such alchemical theories as the doctrine of transmutation and the sulfur-mercury theory... 

In the early years of Theosophy during Blavatsky s lifetime, the modem science that most occupied the movement was, without doubt, the theory of evolution rather than Victorian discoveries in physics and chemistry.4 While Blavatksy in Isis Unveiled and Secret Doctrine grappled in a limited way with modem physics and chemistry, she engaged much more fully with the work of alchemists, especially that of Paracelsus. Her defense of alchemical transmutation was based not upon contemporary science—though she asked of transmutation, Is the idea so absurd as to be totally unworthy of consideration in this age of chemical discovery (Isis 1 503)—but rather upon the exalted reputation of medieval and early modem scientists and alchemists who claimed to have witnessed transmutation (1 503-504). Moreover, the major events that launched modem particle physics—the discoveries of X-rays, the electron, radiation, radium, and radioactive decay—all occurred after Blavatsky died in 1891. 

Whether Wells s novel affected Soddy as much as Soddy s Interpretation of Radium influenced Wells is impossible to determine, but Soddy s move into monetary theory in the postwar period was, in some ways, already implicit in his alchemical vision of the new science.8 Modem alchemy—the atomic science of transmutation, with all its alchemical connections to spiritual systems, gold, and even greed—that Soddy had been exploring in his pre-War writings may have helped turn this Nobel Prize-winning chemist into what was commonly called a money crank. ... 

Recently, we were reading in the daily papers and in the scientific journals, about the transmutation of mercury into gold. With our present theories of chemistry, this appears to us to be not only a possibility, but even a probability. In this story Edgar Allan Poe once more appears in the role of scientific prophet—a role which he so often filled. What he describes in this story, written nearly a century ago, is just such a transmutation as the German chemist [presumably Miethe] claims to have done—namely, the transmutation of mercury into gold. (Poe 1849, 364)... 

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