Transmutation: The Roots of the Dream Vladimir Karpenko Department of Physical and Macromolecular Chemistry, Charles University, Albertov 2030, 128 40 Prague 2, Czech Republic The esoteric components of alchemy were those directed toward a practical application of this science, particularly toward its ultimate goal-transmutation-an artificial transformation of common metals into precious ones. The secret operation or a set of operations supposed to lead to this kind of transformation was repeatedly said to be within reach of any properly educated person provided the suitable agent, usually called the Elixir or the Philosopher's Stone was available (for details see Read ( I ) ) . I t was, however, sometimes claimed that only the correct set of either chemical or metallurgical operations, or a combination of both, was sufficient for the same purpose and could have yielded the expected product-silver or gold prepared out of common metals-without the help of any miraculous transmuting agent. I t is quite clear now that neither this direct way nor the classical approach using the Philosopher's Stone could succeed; however, when alchemy flourished the possibility of the transmutation of metals seemed beyond any doubt and was generally accepted not only hy alchemists, hut hy the broad public a s well. This state of things persisted for centuries, particularly in Europe, in spite of the fact that fraudulent alchemists were exposed repeatedly and punished not unusually with extreme cruelty, which was expected to serve a s a warning to anybody who dared to try deceitful practices. All to no avail; the executioner's sword was not able to deter further generations of Masters of Art and their adherents from attempts to produce gold in an artificial way. A vision of untold riches was too alluring a s testified by numerous alchemical stories (2). Death was a necessary risk. One of the ways in which the alleged transmutation was performed was by fraud based on some tricky manipulation. A process of this kind guaranteed results in that the pure precious metal eventually appeared in a crucible, seemingly a s a result of the alchemist's activity However, discovery of this kind of fraud still led to the scaffold. In addition to this group of people, sometimes called puffers, whose intention it was to deceive the credulous public, there were alchemists who indeed truly tried to accomplish the transmutation. These men experimented with different substances and with varying success; sometimes the products they obtained resembled gold, sometimes it was even gold or its alloy. Today i t is difficult to judge how many alchemists indeed believed in transmutatiou and how many used their experiments a s a kind of a smoke screen covering their fraudulent activity. The Theories behind Alchemical Processes Is it possible to trace the lineage of various transmutation techniques? In other words, what can he said about the theoretical and practical background of transmutation? As far as the chemical and technological side of these techniques is concerned, one of the ways of classifying them is to divide them into groups according to the composition and appearance of the resulting substance. The basic groups can be defined a s follows (3): I. Methods of transmutation where the precious metal is contained in the whole volume of the final product. A. Methods yielding pure metal.
1. Deceitful manipulations. 2. Isolation of precious metals from an alloy or from a
mixture of compounds. B. Methods leading to the debasement of precious metals. 1. Allaying of precious metals with common ones. 2. Cementation. 11. Surface treatment of common metals with precious ones. rII. Methods leading ta products of golden (yellow) or silver (white)color containing no precious metal. n! Transmutation between common metals. V. Fantastic processes. We can now ask which idea, if any, lay behind these technical approaches. The first answer can be sought in alchemical theories of the composition of matter, which seemingly lend a firm basis to experiments of this kind. These theories, which are described elsewhere (4) will he mentioned here only briefly The principal object of Chinese alchemy was to secure immortality or a t least to prolong - human life. For this purpose various chemical reactions were carried out including the alleged transmutations. The apparent possibility of transmutation was supported by Taoistic philosophy, which supposed that matter was composed of the five basic elements: water, earth, fire, wood, and metal. Further addition to this view were the two contrary principles yin and yang. Both approaches blended into a complicated pattern. I n Europe the oldest approach adopted by alchemists was Aristotle's (?384-?322 B.C.) view that matter was com~ o s e dof four elements: fire. earth. water. and air. Each of these represented a certain generalized property; for example, water stood for fluidity, thus metals, heing fusible, were supposed to contain this element. A further idea advanced bv Arabic alchemists was to conceive of sulfur and mercury a s basic constituents, particularly of metals. The purer these constituents were the more precious the resulting metal should he. In Aristotle's theory, sulfur and mercury represented certain general properties- sulfur was linked with combustibility, mercury with metallic properties-and this idea gradually lead to a search for "philosophic" sulfur and mercury. This view turned out to be extraordinarily viable so that even I. Newton (16421727) (5) tried to isolate a "mercury of gold". The final sten in this theoretical develooment was taken by T.~ a r a c e l s k(1493-15411, who broadened the concept to three basic elements: mercury, sulfur, and salt. This last element represented anything that could be described a s havine "inert" properties. When metallic ores were fused. stinkGg fumes ofieu appeared (the "sulfur" of the given substance), then a metal was recovered (the "mercurial" part), and eventually slag or ashes remained (the "salt"). Any of these theories could have been used as a startingpoint for the transmutation process. I t was enough that a given process seemed to change, for example, a proportion of the elements in a metal, provided the o r i ~ n acontent l of this particular metal and s~multaneously
