Science In Real Life: Alchemy
Earth, fire, wind, and water. Other than being, along with heart, the basis for a very popular environmental cartoon show, those four substances form one of civilization's most popular schemes for classifying the elemental substances of the natural world. Since time immemorial, inquisitive minds have been engaged in the noble pursuit of picking up stuff and asking "What is it?" Eventually we moved past four elements to dozens. And once the natural philosophers started to study the properties of various elements, they then started to wonder how to change one into another.
Now, in and of itself this is a valid scientific question. To an alchemist, the elements only vary from one another by their chemical properties, and chemical reactions change one substance into another. Unfortunately, the alchemists were not entirely concerned with discovering the inner workings of the elements. Some of them had as their primary goal the transmuting of other elements into gold, much as Hollywood executives do today. Others sought to create an elixir of immortality. Profit was not the only goal; many alchemists had religious or philosophical reasons behind these quests, but those are still preclusive of good scientific practice.
In a fine bit of historical irony, however, it was the study of alchemy in Renaissance Europe that gave birth to modern science. Almost entirely by accident, in attempting to wrangle the elements to produce gold from lead the alchemists catalogued and verified actual properties of the elements. This is known as chemistry. From the work of the alchemists, scientific pioneers like Robert Boyle, Anton Lavoisier, and Sir Francis Bacon distilled the essence of pure research, with a side order of some of the first groundbreaking results in our modern understanding of chemistry. When paired with the brilliant work of Newton, Hooke, and Descartes, among other early physicists, science as we know it today was born.
It is to Newton that I now turn for a brief side note before discussing the actual science of alchemy. Newton is often revered both within the scientific community and without for his work in physics and mathematics, and rightly so: his aptitude for and developments in those subjects were astounding. However, to Newton they were of little importance. Newton, you see, was an alchemist, albeit in a time when it was starting to go out of fashion. Check his published works - he wrote far more about alchemy than he did about physics or math. Late in life he worked for the Royal Mint of England, which means gold. He spent far more time attempting to turn lead into gold than he ever spent thinking about gravity.
So did he do it? Is it possible? Before we decide that we have to clarify some concepts. Protons and neutrons are subatomic particles. A chemical element is identified not by the color of its skin but by the content of its nucleus - by how many protons it has. Neutrons are also present, we'll come back to those later. Thus, in order to change one element into another we need what is called a nuclear reaction. We need to change the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. So, bad news for those of you reading this from the 17th century: you need a lot of energy to do this, a lot more than is available from combining your would-be-future-gold with another chemical substance.
No, in order to get a nuclear reaction going you need to accelerate atoms to light speed. No, light speed's too slow. You need to accelerate atoms to ludicrous speeds! This requires either a magnetic particle accelerator, or a supernova. Not having access to exploding stars here on Earth, scientists have used the former for all kinds of nuclear physics experiments, including investigations into how elements change into other elements. As it turns out, there are very specific rules about the ratio of protons to neutrons (I said we'd come back to those) that you can have, otherwise a nucleus just isn't stable. You can't just shoot protons at atoms and hope it sticks like spaghetti on the refrigerator door.
Instead, what you have to do is combine smaller nuclei in just the right way to create an even larger nucleus that activates a complex sequence of radioactive decays, hopscotching from one radioactive isotope to the next, until it finally lands on a stable version of the element you want. Isaac Newton eat your heart out. Bottom line: the only way to make any reasonable amount of gold from other elements is in the massive chaos of a supernova explosion. Philosopher's stone optional.
I had fun with this one. Keep the ideas coming!
Now, in and of itself this is a valid scientific question. To an alchemist, the elements only vary from one another by their chemical properties, and chemical reactions change one substance into another. Unfortunately, the alchemists were not entirely concerned with discovering the inner workings of the elements. Some of them had as their primary goal the transmuting of other elements into gold, much as Hollywood executives do today. Others sought to create an elixir of immortality. Profit was not the only goal; many alchemists had religious or philosophical reasons behind these quests, but those are still preclusive of good scientific practice.
In a fine bit of historical irony, however, it was the study of alchemy in Renaissance Europe that gave birth to modern science. Almost entirely by accident, in attempting to wrangle the elements to produce gold from lead the alchemists catalogued and verified actual properties of the elements. This is known as chemistry. From the work of the alchemists, scientific pioneers like Robert Boyle, Anton Lavoisier, and Sir Francis Bacon distilled the essence of pure research, with a side order of some of the first groundbreaking results in our modern understanding of chemistry. When paired with the brilliant work of Newton, Hooke, and Descartes, among other early physicists, science as we know it today was born.
It is to Newton that I now turn for a brief side note before discussing the actual science of alchemy. Newton is often revered both within the scientific community and without for his work in physics and mathematics, and rightly so: his aptitude for and developments in those subjects were astounding. However, to Newton they were of little importance. Newton, you see, was an alchemist, albeit in a time when it was starting to go out of fashion. Check his published works - he wrote far more about alchemy than he did about physics or math. Late in life he worked for the Royal Mint of England, which means gold. He spent far more time attempting to turn lead into gold than he ever spent thinking about gravity.
So did he do it? Is it possible? Before we decide that we have to clarify some concepts. Protons and neutrons are subatomic particles. A chemical element is identified not by the color of its skin but by the content of its nucleus - by how many protons it has. Neutrons are also present, we'll come back to those later. Thus, in order to change one element into another we need what is called a nuclear reaction. We need to change the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. So, bad news for those of you reading this from the 17th century: you need a lot of energy to do this, a lot more than is available from combining your would-be-future-gold with another chemical substance.
No, in order to get a nuclear reaction going you need to accelerate atoms to light speed. No, light speed's too slow. You need to accelerate atoms to ludicrous speeds! This requires either a magnetic particle accelerator, or a supernova. Not having access to exploding stars here on Earth, scientists have used the former for all kinds of nuclear physics experiments, including investigations into how elements change into other elements. As it turns out, there are very specific rules about the ratio of protons to neutrons (I said we'd come back to those) that you can have, otherwise a nucleus just isn't stable. You can't just shoot protons at atoms and hope it sticks like spaghetti on the refrigerator door.
Instead, what you have to do is combine smaller nuclei in just the right way to create an even larger nucleus that activates a complex sequence of radioactive decays, hopscotching from one radioactive isotope to the next, until it finally lands on a stable version of the element you want. Isaac Newton eat your heart out. Bottom line: the only way to make any reasonable amount of gold from other elements is in the massive chaos of a supernova explosion. Philosopher's stone optional.
I had fun with this one. Keep the ideas coming!