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Al Schneider V.I.P. A corn field in WI surrounded by 1080 Posts |
I have heard a story or read it. I do not recollect. I present it here with the hope someone can validate it or refute it. It is a story about alchemists. Apparently one of their goals was to understand the universe. In this quest they attempted to change one element into another. One thing they would do is place a philosopher's stone into mercury for awhile. Then they would distill the mercury extracting gold from the solution. They would do this for awhile until they could make a gold ring that they would wear as a badge of honor. This story pointed out that the philosopher's stone consisted of uranium. The emissions from the uranium bombarded mercury transforming it into gold. The alchemist extracted the gold to make a ring. The trouble is that the gold was radioactive. Hence, it would destroy the tissue of the alchemists ring figner. The finger would evenually fall off. As a demonstration of this story it went on to point out that paintings of famous alchemists would be drawn with a missing ring finger.
I have told this story to many and it is quite entertaining. However, I do not know if it is truen. Also, I am to lazy to determine this for myself. Is there an eurdite individual around that can share the facts of this. Thanks.
Magic Al. Say it fast and it is magical.
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Paul Sherman Inner circle Arlington, VA 1511 Posts |
I haven't heard the story, but it's an interesting one.
I'm certain that uranium does NOT have the ability to transform mercury into gold. However, mercury has long been used to extract gold from ore. You can find a description of the process here: http://www.pbs.org/weta/roughscience/ser......act.html So it's possible that certain stones, when added to mercury, were assumed to be turning the mercury into gold when, in fact, the mercury was simply extracting gold from the stones. I suppose it's possible that the ore could also contain radioactive materials that might contaminate the gold. However, I would think an early alchemist would probably be at much greater risk from mercury poisoning than radiation poisoning.
"The finished card expert considers nothing too trivial that in any way contributes to his success..." Erdnase
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27300 Posts |
I like the story. It has the elements of a good myth. Something old, something new (uranium), something borrowed and something severed. lol
Can't say I've seen that many paintings of alchemists so can't comment on that beyond pointing out that Issac Newton had his fingers. As did his contemporaries. That story has to be rather recent, as before the Curies moved tons of pitchblende, there was no hands on experience with radioactive decay. The "touch stone" allows you to test gold content. Add some wishful thinking and you have a stone that turns base metal to gold. The bombardment of lead nuclei with alpha particles (helium nuclei) has been known to make gold nuclei. Albeit on a scale of individual atoms, so mole of gold might take quite a while to run through that process. You do get radio-gold by the way, so again this suggests the story was assembled sometime in the early 1950s, or more likely in the 1960s. Nothing about Alchemy being a practice to transform the Alchemist? That kind of tips the construction of the myth though. Even so, this is a good story and may be useful in presentations and perhaps even a movie.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Bill Palmer Eternal Order Only Jonathan Townsend has more than 24314 Posts |
There is a book that everyone who is interested in performing bizarre magic should read. It is called The Morning of the Magicians by Pauwels and Bergier. It goes into some of the "real" meanings of alchemy.
It is excellent reading. BTW, Al, welcome to the forum. I have often recommended your book on Zombie, as well as Matrix to friends of mine who wanted to learn how to do them. I had the great fortune to see you perform Zombie in a booth at a convention -- I think it was the IBM convention in 1975 in Little Rock. I was really impressed. Your DVD set is absolutely primo!
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups." www.cupsandballsmuseum.com |
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