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Link #41 |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: N49°18.1013' W122°57.5639'
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ALCHEMY is 'protoscientific stew' of chemistry, astrology, mysticism, metallurgy, physics, and religion.
Mosly associated with metallurgy and pharmacology. Renaissance alchemists were often involved in brass making, gold smithing, and assessing the noble metal content of ore, jewelry, or coins. But they were also fascinated with the idea of transmutation and believed in a sort of infinite mutability of matter. They sought the philosopher's stone--the magical substance for transforming base metals into gold and indefinitely prolonging life. |
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Link #45 |
Clan Ed
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Konoha village
Age: 37
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this is the best thread ever i have read in my god damn fucking life dude. i was into tarot and alchemy a year ago and was doing quite a research on it. thanks to u guys information that now i have quite large info on alchemy.
some how and somewhere i sort of encounter a saying that claim that those gold in the past, was not real gold in fact it was pyrite crystal. a kind of fake gold. sorry for my poor english, was having hectic school day recently . pardon me... |
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Link #49 | |
Monkeykyou Sharingan
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Schweden, ja!
Age: 35
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Quote:
Anyway mom wanted me to help her beam up a bed ![]() |
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Link #50 | |
Über Alles
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Quote:
(Forgive the bad explanations if you dont get it, i havent taken chemistry in a reallll long time) |
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Link #51 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Although nobody can really be sure about old alchemy, technically, someone in the modern times has. I was told this by a friend o' mine and if I see her again I'll be sure to get the details. from what I remember, some guy used an electron thingy to change one lead particle into a gold particle. Although it's so small, it still happened.
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Link #52 |
naa woo toe?
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Yes, alchemy did exist but its not what it seems like in FMA. Alchemy was the transmuting of basic metals into gold( without the clapping of hands, arrays, blah blah) via boiling them. Also, some alchemists searched for a Philosopher's Stone and with just a simple piece of the stone ( even the size of a hair) can turn ANY metal into gold if mixed. Alchemy practices were actually popular in ancient times.
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Link #56 |
Enigma of Nothing
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Seattle WA, USA
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I found some interesting articles from wikipedia on Alchemy, so here it is!
Alchemy as a proto-science The common perception of alchemists is that they were pseudo-scientists, crackpots and charlatans, who attempted to turn lead into gold, believed that the universe was composed of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and spent most of their time concocting miraculous remedies, poisons, and magic potions. This picture is rather unfair. Although some alchemists were indeed crackpots and charlatans, many were well-meaning and intelligent scholars, who were simply struggling to make sense of a subject which, as we now know, was far beyond the reach of their tools. These people were basically "proto-scientists", who attempted to explore and investigate the nature of chemical substances and processes. They had to rely on unsystematic experimentation, traditional know-how, rules of thumb — and plenty of speculative thought to fill in the wide gaps in existing knowledge. Given these conditions, the mystic character of alchemy is quite understandable: to early alchemists, chemical transformations could only seem like magical phenomena governed by incomprehensible laws, whose potential and limitations they had no way of knowing. Having discovered that a specific procedure could turn an earth-like ore into glistening metal, it was only natural to speculate that some different procedure could turn a metal into another. At the same time, it was clear to the alchemists that "something" was generally being conserved in chemical processes, even in the most dramatic changes of physical state and appearance; i.e. that substances contained some "principles" that could be hidden under many outer forms, and revealed by proper manipulation. Throughout the history of the discipline, alchemists struggled very hard to understand the nature of these principles, and find some order and sense in the results of their chemical experiments — which were often undermined by impure or poorly characterized reagents, the lack of quantitative measurements, and confusing and inconsistent nomenclature. In spite of those difficulties, and of many false turns and loops, the alchemists managed to make steady progress in the understanding of the natural world. To them we owe the discovery of many important substances and chemical processes which paved the way for the modern science of chemistry and are still the mainstay of today's chemical and metallurgical industries. |
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Link #57 |
Kage Bunshin No Jutsu
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Melbourne
Age: 38
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Alchemy is an early protoscientific and philosophical discipline combining elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism, spiritualism, and art. Alchemy has been practiced in Ancient Egypt, India, and China, in Classical Greece and Rome, in the Islamic empire, and then in Europe up to the nineteenth century — in a complex network of schools and philosophical systems spanning at least 2500 years.
Western alchemy has always been closely connected with Hermeticism, a philosophical and spiritual system that traces its roots to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic Egyptian-Greek deity and legendary alchemist. These two disciplines influenced the birth of Rosicrucianism, an important esoteric movement of the seventeenth century. In the course of the early modern period, as mainstream alchemy evolved into modern chemistry, its mystic and Hermetic aspects became the focus of a modern spiritual alchemy, where material manipulations are viewed as mere symbols of spiritual transformations. Today, the discipline is of interest mainly to historians of science and philosophy, and for its mystic, esoteric, and artistic aspects. Nevertheless, alchemy was one of the main precursors of modern sciences, and we owe to the ancient alchemists the discovery of many substances and processes that are the mainstay of modern chemical and metallurgical industries. |
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Link #58 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2006
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hmm... what gets me is that there are people out there who still believe that alchemy was used mostly for turning lead into gold. you must note that very few actually succeed at this feat. Some of the other main purposes of Alchemy was to create medicines to cure illnesses and disease. It was used a lot for medical purposes. And I don't know if this was mentioned before, but most of use have heard about Nicolas Flammel and the Philosopher's Stone.
But I do have a intriguing theory about the egyptians and alchemy but that is not the purpose of my typing this |
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Link #59 |
Blazing General
Join Date: May 2006
Location: CA
Age: 37
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I think you mean 'very few actually attempted.' Obviously none succeeded, or the values of lead and gold would be in equilibrium.
It's worth noting that Chinese alchemy was somewhat different from European and was focused on the attainment of immortality through the consumption of reagents thought to combine in the body to create an undying inner self. Of course, it wasn't as significant in the development of more practical science or medicine because the practicioners usually poisoned themselves so there wasn't any real way to repeat experiments and derive knowledge... |
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