Alchemy: Turning rocks into gold since the Middle Ages!
Alchemy. What a misunderstood science. I hope this article can help clear things up for whoever reads it.
Alchemy is an ancient art, first practiced in the Middle Ages. He dedicated himself to finding a substance that would transmute (or convert) base metals into gold, silver, or other precious metals, and also to cause immortality in humans. Alchemy was probably the first time people were immersed in chemistry.
Alchemy began in Ancient Egypt and was especially prevalent in Alexandria in the Hellenistic period. At the same time, China had also been playing with ideas. The earliest writings on alchemy by the Greek philosophers are sometimes considered the earliest chemical theories. Empedocles (im-ped-oh-klees) famously formulated the theory that all things that exist were made of air, fire, earth, and water. Later, Emperor Diocletian (die-oh-klee-shun) ordered all Egyptian texts on the chemistry of gold and silver to be burned and all maturities to be stopped.
Zosimus the Theban discovered that sulfuric acid is a solvent for metals and, with this, he removed the oxygen from the red oxide of mercury, turning the oxidized mercury pure again, just as if you removed rust from a nail, it would be a normal nail. new. The fundamental concept of alchemy comes from an Aristotelian doctrine that says that all things tend to reach perfection at some point. Since other base metals were “less perfect” than gold and other precious metals, it made sense to these researchers that these metals would eventually become gold. It was also thought that nature must produce gold from base metals deep within the earth, so with any luck this process could be done in the laboratory with good results.
Finally, alchemy reached Arabia, where the first book on chemistry was written. From there he traveled through Spain, towards Europe. Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus believed that transmutation into gold was possible. Most people, including these two famous alchemists, believed that gold was the perfect metal, and that if the Philosopher’s Stone was created, it would be a much more perfect substance than gold, which would cause less perfect metals to transmute.
Roger Bacon believed that the gold dissolved in Aqua Regia* was the elixir of life. The Italian scholastic philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Catalan clergyman Raymond Lully, and the Benedictine monk Basilio Valentin also contributed much to the progress of chemistry and alchemy by discovering the uses of antimony, the manufacture of amalgams, and the isolation of spirits. of wine, or ethyl alcohol.
Perhaps the most famous alchemist was the Swiss Philippus Paracelsus. He believed that the elements of composite bodies were salt, sulfur, and mercury, which represented earth, air, and water. However, the fire was imponderable to him. He also believed that there was one more element, the source of the ancient four. This one element that created everything was called Alkahest, and he claimed that if found, it would prove to be the universal medicine, an irresistible solvent, and the philosopher’s stone. In other words, it was the ultimate form of perfection.
After this, the alchemists of Europe divided into two main groups. Those that were based on facts and hard investigations, and those that dabbled in the metaphysical, these entangled alchemy in fraud, necromancy and imposture. This gives alchemy its current mysterious status.
Perhaps the funnest part of Alchemy is the coded etchings that were made over time. Many of them still exist and are almost impossible to figure out without an explanation. Using obscure characters, including the planets themselves, as symbols of who knows what. Kings, queens, ravens, multi-flowered flowers and green lions abound.