Long seen as con artists who claimed they could produce life-extending elixirs and convert base metals into gold and silver, alchemists pursued a lot of serious chemistry too. They produced pigments, developed metallurgy, and made colored glasses—which, well, they did occasionally sell as fake gems.
by Sarah Everts | May 22, 2017
—Tracking Nuclear Decay Atom-By-Atom “Nuclear Chemistry: Method for observing transmutation suggests approach to improving cancer therapy” Waiting for a specific atom of a radioactive element to undergo nuclear transmutation could be futile because those events happen randomly. Yet a research team led by Tufts University chemist E.
by Mitch Jacoby | June 22, 2015
The philosophers’ stone is the long-sought-after agent of transmutation, capable of turning base metals into precious gold and silver, and an elixir for human health and longevity. As is the case for many alchemical recipes, the images in “Atalanta Fugiens” provide intentionally obtuse, secretive instructions for sublimation, calcination, and other alchemical processes.
by Sarah Everts | March 24, 2014
They are all handwritten on paper or parchment, created prior to the development of the printing press, a technological innovation that helped launch alchemy’s golden age in the 17th century, when heavy-hitters like Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle avidly pursued transmutation of base metals into gold with as much enthusiasm as their more famous chemistry innovations.
by Sarah Everts | January 13, 2014
He also received the tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel Prize in physics in 1997 “for his wide-ranging achievements in cold fusion, in the transmutation of base elements into gold, and in the electrochemical incineration of domestic rubbish.” Bockris was a member of ACS from 1980 until 1998. /articles/91/i43/John-OMara-Bockris.html 20131028 Obituaries 91 43 /magazine/91/09143.html John O'Mara Bockris obituaries obits acs-news Stephen K.
by Stephen K. Ritter | October 28, 2013
He also carries out his own alchemical experiments to get a handle on the thought processes of those experimentalists who tried to make gold from cheaper materials. One school of alchemists that Principe got particularly interested in is a group who focused on making gold by starting with mercury. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, Principe says, “there was a lot of disagreement about what material to start with—what you actually go to your apothecary and get 20 lb of to start trying to” transmute base metals and chemicals into gold.
by Lauren Wolf | August 29, 2011
With the goal of making gold from cheap materials, alchemists, unsurprisingly, were a cryptic bunch, Principe says. “There are lots of examples of alchemists who claimed success and then found themselves arrested and imprisoned in the lab of some prince or king” who wanted the knowledge for himself, he adds.
by Lauren K. Wolf | August 29, 2011
—Acid-To-Base Transmutation “Inorganic chemistry: First stable metal-free borylene adduct could aid catalyst design” Unlike alchemists’ fruitless efforts to turn base metals into gold, researchers have succeeded in transmuting conventional boron compounds, which are acidic, into stable borylene adducts, which are bases similar to amines.
by Stu Borman | August 01, 2011
However, had we been a bit more enterprising, we could instead have mined our collection for gold, which is now selling for well over $1,000 per ounce. All those jumper pins, processor slots, and various connectors are plated with a few micrometers of gold. And it’s not fool’s gold—iron pyrite—but the genuine element, used because of its excellent thermal and electrical conductivity and resistance to oxidation.
by Marc S. Reisch | August 23, 2010
—Alchemy Takes On New Luster “Scholars strive to meld alchemy into the traditional scientific narrative” To most people, the word "alchemist" conjures an image of a dank, medieval laboratory with a bearded initiate pursuing the futile, magical ambition to convert lead into gold. But not to those at the International Conference on the History of Alchemy & Chymistry, which took place last week at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia.
by Ivan Amato | July 26, 2006