-
Asked by terimater to Aime, Akshat, Diana, Gemma, Judith on 16 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by shirogane.
-
Akshat Rathi answered on 15 Jun 2011:
No. It is not possible to convert one element to another without expending a huge amount of energy which makes the element then made not worth the value.
But chemistry itself was born out of alchemy, so there was definitely some use to have wondered on that path. Here’s a fun story from an old alchemist called Hennig Brand. He thought that urine is golden in colour so there must be some gold in it. He set about trying to recover gold from urine and instead discovered phosphorus! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennig_Brand#Alchemy)
-
-
Gemma Sharp answered on 15 Jun 2011:
I’m glad you asked this question because I knew nothing about alchemy before I looked it up. How did you come to hear about it?
Akshat’s answer is good. Hennig Brand sounds like a bit of a character. I wouldn’t have wanted to be around when he was doing his experiments, especially the ‘boiling urine to make a thick syrup’ bit… Very odd.
-
-
Judith McCann answered on 16 Jun 2011:
Alchemys where people try and turn lead to gold? nice work if you can do it 🙂
Even if it can’t be done, at least someone had a go!
-
Diana Samuel answered on 16 Jun 2011:
No, I doubt it – but its such an intriguing topic, thanks for bringing it up!
Comments