[Loch-Ruadh] alchemy?

Polydore polydore at ntbb.net
Thu Aug 25 16:52:35 PDT 2005


They used a lot of lead and mercury... and poisoned themselves a lot.  
They also blew themselves up a lot. Provided they lived in a time/place 
where the church didn't imprision or kill them first. Or some prince 
that they displeased by failing to make the promised gold...

On the other hand, being on a prince's expense account might make it 
worth while!

PS: I'd like to borrow the philosopher's stone when he manages one. I 
think living forever might be cool...

Polydore!

Terry Sikes wrote:

> Don't get me started on alchemy.  I had a chemistry teacher that went 
> into it in detail.  Remember that alchemists, up until suprisingly not 
> so long ago, thought that every element in the universe was made of 
> earth, wind, fire, and water, and thought that if you mixed these four 
> elements in the right combination you could make anything.  So that 
> meant since gold and lead were so close together in weight, if you 
> just changed lead a little bit it would become gold.  The man that 
> discovered oxygen, in fact, was trying to find out why mercury, when 
> you heated it with air, became red mercury (mercuric oxide) and 
> weighed more, when almost everything else when you heated it turned 
> black and weighed less.  When he heated the mercuric oxide the oxygen 
> came out and he noted that the vapor made him feel energetic and made 
> a stick burst into flames.
>  
> Terrence
> */
> /*






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