Alchemy And The Philosopher's Stone

Alchemy was an early form of pseudoscience focused on a mythical substance, the philosopher’s stone. Alchemists had many conflicting views on what the stone was and what its powers were, but it was believed to be very powerful. Uses of the stone included producing the elixir of life, which could cure any illness and prolong life indefinitely, and turning ordinary rocks into precious gems. The main goal of alchemy, “transmuting base metals into gold,” was believed to be possible only when using the philosopher’s stone as a catalyst (Kauffman 69). Alchemists thought this was possible because “of their belief in the unity of all matter,” and therefore a chemical reaction could change any metal into gold, but transmuting lead was their focus (Kauffman 71). With the dawn of modern chemistry and the discovery of the differences between each chemical element, popular opinion shifted towards this dream being impossible.

In their search for the elusive philosopher’s stone, alchemists conducted experiments that lead to many enlightening scientific discoveries. Late alchemists are sometimes better known as scientists; the chemist Robert Boyle and the physicist Sir Isaac Newton were among them. In 1898, there was a discovery that seemed to finally prove that transmutation was impossible. Rutherford’s gold foil experiment revealed the existence of the nucleus, and the number of protons in the nucleus determines the element (Rutherford). Since lead and gold have different numbers of protons in their nuclei, and there was no known way to change this, as a chemical reaction does not change the nuclei of atoms. Turning lead into gold was therefore assumed to be impossible. This confirmed the suspicions of the time. However, there was something else that scientists had yet to discover: nuclear