Alchemy

[jorge_jmt]

hi, hey, I do not even know if you know whats alchemy, but I'll tell you a little bit about it:

Alchemy is an old science and philosophical subject which contains from physics, chemistry, philosophy, theology and art, maybe some of you have heard about the Philosophers Stone or the Elixir of Life which are supposed to be products of this subject, and transmutting lead to gold, all those kinds of things, i know, it sounds stupid, but think about it, now there are some scientifics that are developing a chemical that slows down the oxidation process in the body, thus expanding the life time, they tried it with mostitoes that have an average life of 20 days and lived for 45 days, and now with nuclear energy, lead can be turned to gold by nuclear transmuttation, so think about it, there are many ways of achieving some goals, why not another way through alchemy?

[Jay-qu]

Modern science has many origins, alchemy was trying to use undeveloped science to try and accomplish a wish list of ideas. When they tried to convert metals to gold they where trying to use chemical processes, they could not have hoped to accidently produced gold. So while scientific research may be considered to have origins in alchemy, that does not make alchemy any more of a science.

[Tormod]

jorge, read Mendeleyev's Dream by Paul Strathern. It's a great book about the history of chemistry (including alchemy). It puts it into perspective.

[HydrogenBond]

Many years back I studied alchemy but from the angle of psychology. This approach was used by the psychologist Carl Jung. His conclusion was that they were mystical psychologists and were projecting the workings of the human psyche into their alchemy.

 

While I was studying collective psychology and alchemy on the side, I was, in real life, an engineer with a practical problem that was right down the lines of alchemy symbolism. I needed to develop some new technology for removing mercury from water because of a water main break in a retired facility that once used mercury as an extraction solvent. The EPA set the discharge standards an order of magnitude stricter (1PPB) than the then best available mercury removal technology (50PPB). Because I needed the technology yesterday, to deal with the emergency, I took a stab using some alchemy reasoning since they did a lot of work with mercury.

 

Mercury was the mercurial serpent, very elusive. Mercury was also called quicksilver and was also equated, at least in part, with the Devil because it was poisonous. The Achemy thinking was like attracts like. What came to mind was sulfur or the sulfur fires of hell. Mercury should feel at home with sulfur fire. The first experiments reacted the mercury water with sodium sulfide to make mercury sulfide, which is one of the most insoluable substances in nature. I could get the water down to 2PPB using filtration. Not good enough.

 

It turned out that the mercury was still elusive due to some mercury oxide forming which was more soluble. So I needed another alchemy attraction lure for the mercury oxide. Copper and iron both fit the bill. The copper was associated with Venus the goddesss of love and romance, but adding copper would make the process sort of hazardous. So I decided to use iron. Iron was equated with the planet Mars and the god of war. Mercury should feel right at home with iron. The new experiment was ferric sulfide. This will convert both the mercury and mercury oxide to mercury sulfide. I could get the water down to the EPA requirement, but it was too close for comfort and required microfiltration, which may not be practical during scale-up.

 

I needed a way to fix or immobilize the mercury all in one step. The mercurial serpent was often seen as a duality, with its head associated with Christ and its body and tail with Satan. So I needed to add something from the good-side. I ended up using an anion exchange resin, which is full of positive charge. I saturated the resin with sodium sulfide to make an cation resin, and then then reacted this with Ferric chloride to make an anion exchange resin, i.e, ferric sulfide fixed on the resdin. The resin worked by reacting with both merculry and mercury oxide to bind mercury sulfide with the production of iron oxide (rust).

 

This approach got us down to less than 100PPT, which was the limit of the analytical equipment at the time. It only took three weeks to and invent and develop and another month to scale up and was used to treat 2Million gallons of water. Controversial me internally published my alchemy logic, since it was one of the tools that I used in my reasoning. Nobody was very happy with that and thought I had gone over the edge. But it still got the job done. After that I was humorously called the Mercury Man.

[UncleAl]

Alchemy is an old science

Alchemy has nothing to do with science. Alchemy is a collection of arbitrary dogma seeking empirical support. Science is a collection of empirical observations modeled by mathematics. Cart and horse. Only one configuration works.

[jorge_jmt]

actually, alchemy was the first science, and I don´t mean to say I actually believe in this, but people need their history to learn about their mistakes, saying alchemy is not a science is like saying your father is not part of your family, even though it may be incorrect, it IS an essensial part of science.

[HydrogenBond]

Alchemy was the precursor of applied chemistry. The alchemist invented aqua regia (HCL and HNO3) or the queen's bath and used it to dissolve gold, i.e, one of the few solutions that can even in modern days can dissolve gold. Not a bad trick for nothing to do with science. They also developed distillation technology for making alcoholic spirits.

 

They would explain things differently because they did not know about the atom and other things we know today about chemistry, but they were good at practical science. They also catalogued a wide range of elements and chemical compounds. Turning lead into gold was a little too ambitious.

[GAHD]

Speaking of aqua regia...

[Qfwfq]

Alchemy was certainly the precursor of chemistry, notice the 'chem' in both names, and it could be called an "immature science" in that it "grew up" into chemistry.

 

The difference is in method, use of models and serious verification, rather than wild speculation and pure empiricism. Wanting to revive alchemy is much like wanting your father to revert back to being a kid.

[Michaelangelica]

Alchemy was interesting herbally too.

Alchemists like Paracelsus tried to fine the innate, ultimate "Essence" of plants.

http://www.alchemylab.com/paracelsus.htm

Alchemists distilled many plants and from many they extracted a volatile oil.

We still call these oils "Essential Oils" today.

We are still looking for the "active ingredient" (Essence?) in many plants.

[jorge_jmt]

I'm not trying to revive alchemy, nor saying it is true, if some of you do not consider it a science, at least it was a kind of primitive chemistry, the reason of why I published this thread was to open a discussion to talk about alchemy history, about alchemists, information about it, not to discuss if it is real or not, or if it is a science or not, I dont mean to be mean in any way, if I've offended some of you im sorry, that was not my intention.

[InfiniteNow]

No worries, Jorge... Just think if you'd posted this in Theology. Whoa... talk about walking away with a burned hiney. :)

 

 

One thing Hypo has a lot of is strong and well informed opinions, but if you ask questions about which you are genuinely curious, you may arrive at some greater degree of understanding as a result. While a wise man walks with his head bowed, there's no reason to do so in shame.

 

 

Cheers.

 

:)

[Michaelangelica]

Reading a"Horrible Science" book for kids (Scolastic, 96).

I found the following fascinating little bits about alchemy:-

 

Charles II may have been poisoned by the mercury he used for alchemy experiments.

 

Sir Isac Newton (now there is one weird guy) went mad for 2 years after using mercury in alchemy experiments.

 

Alchemy started in Egypt in Roman times and in ancient China.

 

The element phosphorous was discovered by an alchemist whilst he was examining the contents of his own urine. (Hening Brand 1669)

 

A 17th century Chinese alchemist first described how to make gunpowder from sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal (saltpetre was extracted from rotting pig manure!:shrug:

 

By 1700 scientists dropped the "al" (which means 'the' in Arabic) and called themselves chemists.

 

You can change metals into gold!!!

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937). To make gold you zap bits off the atoms with a high energy ray. Unfortunately the easiest metal to turn into gold is platinum.

(Keep an eye on the rising world price for gold?)

[Qfwfq]

A 17th century Chinese alchemist first described how to make gunpowder from sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal

17th century? Not AD, surely.

:lol:

[ronthepon]

Hey yeah. The chinese had gunpowder since a long long time.(well more than 400 years anyway) Definite records exist of that.

[Michaelangelica]

Hey yeah. The chinese had gunpowder since a long long time.(well more than 400 years anyway) Definite records exist of that.

I thought it was earlier than 17c myself

will look it up

 

Yes Scolastic are not renowned for their accuracy and proofing

One web source says "People first invented gunpowder in China, about 900 AD, during the Tang Dynasty. They made gunpowder by mixing saltpeter (potassium nitrate) with sulfur and carbon"

 

It took the west to turn Gunpowder into a weapon

(Although when was Gangis Khan? he had rocket propelled arrows)

 

Guess I'm wrong here too

"By 1126 AD, people in China learned to make rockets that would shoot from a bamboo tube, and bombs that would explode when they landed, which Chinese soldiers shot from catapults.

Thanks to the establishment of the Mongol Empire, which encouraged trade across Central Asia, news of this new invention was already reaching the Mamluks in West Asia only about 300 years later, about 1200 AD.

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/war/gunpowder.htm

[InfiniteNow]

I thought it was earlier than 17c myself

will look it up

Perhaps they were not describing the first act of making gun powder, but instead the first time that particular method was used to do so...