have you ever had that strange urge to
take a pilot lead do some transmutation
or chicanery and then suddenly have a
pile of solid gold instead well yeah if
that sounds absolutely amazing
that's alchemy guys sounds pretty
awesome right but as we all know you
need the Philosopher's Stone for that
level of alchemical power and that's a
highly sought after artifact you see
whilst the ancient philosophical
traditions of this proto science have
captivated the vast and expansive
imagination of our civilization since
the early days of esoteric thought
giving light to some of the most
enlightening works of art and literature
ever created alchemy as an actual
accredited scientific method is pretty
wishy-washy abbess but what if they were
onto something what if alchemy was real
let's find out hello Internet what's
going on I want to get welcome back to
the most inquisitive channel on YouTube
life's biggest questions as per usual
I'll be all there somebody floating
voice jack finches today weaker she
asked the question what if alchemy was
real for the juice emoji of course that
clip was some 20 18 s fantastic beasts
the crimes of Grindelwald depicting one
of the most famous posthumous alchemists
of all time the legendary Nicholas
Flamel genuine immortal and holder of
the coveted Philosopher's Stone because
yes in the Wizarding World
alchemy is certainly very much real but
towards mere muggles unfortunately that
isn't the case you see it sticks on a
pretty important point for centuries
alchemy has been heralded as one of the
most mysterious lost arts particularly
in fiction but the truth of the matter
is the mysticism of alchemy is pretty
much ingrained throughout even when the
most prolific of alchemists were in full
swing they'd still note their workings
out in the most mysterious of manners so
there's no one days had the impact that
it has on the wild imaginations of we
human beings to address this question
first and foremost though we should make
one thing incredibly clear when we ask
the question of alchemy being real what
we're really asking is what would our
civilization be like if we could
transmute base metals into noble metals
what if we could turn lead into gold
because the truth is
me as a whole Israel and it has formed
some of the most important discoveries
in science before we had chance to even
realize it you see it's easy for us to
look back at the ancient world and think
that we were so much smarter than they
would but that really isn't the case
ancient alchemists were most often
complete and utter geniuses so for us to
give credit to their discoveries we
should probably take a little dive into
their history alchemy a term from the
Arabic alchemy art meaning to fuse or
cast a metal with the ancient branches
of natural philosophy philosophical and
proto scientific traditions that were
practiced throughout Europe Africa and
Asia and thought to have originated in
greco-roman Egypt in the first few
centuries its aims although they were
myriad were primarily an attempt to
purify mature and perfect certain
materials cryo Sapir the transmutation
of base metals such as led to the noble
metals particularly gold in the creation
of an elixir of immortality yeah well
we'll get to that one in a moment you
see it's difficult to pin down because
alchemy encompasses several
philosophical traditions that span over
four millennia and three continents
throughout history these have spread out
into three distinct yet vaguely similar
schools Chinese alchemy Indian alchemy
and Western alchemy perhaps the most
prolific of the three and certainly the
most widely recorded who see the truth
is Chinese and Indian alchemy were
widely refer to through religious
iconography and oral traditions passed
down through metaphors and allegories
which kind of makes things a little
difficult to tie down Western alchemy
although it certainly has had its fair
share of metaphorical dissemination as
it passed from Egypt to Rome to the
Islamic world and then back towards
medieval Europe makes up the bulk of our
understanding of the great and
mysterious history of alchemy you see it
is widely believed that the dawn of
Western alchemy was associated with the
dawn of metallurgy extending back to a
point roughly around 3500 BC and as the
technologies of separating metals from
their all advanced so too did alchemy in
the proto science of understanding the
rare and wonderful properties of the
physical world all of this though paled
in comparison to the ultimate goal of
alchemy the great work the magnum opus
which is literally where we get the
latin phrase
from the process of working on the
primer materia in order to create the
Philosopher's Stone and this is where
the veracity of alchemy kind of falls
flat on its face
of course as we know you cannot
transmute metals together by strictly
passing them through four phases of
chemical processes and then suddenly
have the key to immortality but hold
that thought
because what if they were onto something
you see since the dawn of the scientific
methods with genius minds such as it
been out hey Thurman
Roger Bacon as well as the later
enlightenment of the 17th century and
the establishment of modern science the
continued practice and study of alchemy
has been widely forgotten throughout
much of the 20th century the academic
community had no time for the scrolling
z' of an ancient practice and their
patients with alchemists in their vain
efforts to transmute base metals into
gold was like an adult smiling at a
child building a four out of pillows but
that was before something pretty
remarkable happened in the 1980s some
revisionist scholars began arguing that
alchemists had actually made significant
contributions to the development of
science it's just that it wasn't easy to
discover the true extent of it
you see alchemists were obsessed with
secrecy and they deliberately described
their experiments in metaphorical terms
with bizarre and intricate references to
mythology and history for instance
warned text describes a cold dragon who
creeps in and out of caves in hindsight
this was the discovery of saltpeter or
potassium nitrate a crystalline
substance found on cave walls that is
cooled on the tongue pretty interesting
right well a few decades down the line
it got one particular science historian
thinking a man named Lawrence príncipe
of John Hopkins University who wondered
what other intrigues were hidden in the
lost art of alchemy after cobbling
together obscure texts and scraps of
information from a 17th century
laboratory notebook principai managed to
produce a long lost recipe to grow what
is known as a philosopher's tree from a
seed of gold supposedly thought to be a
precursor to the magnum opus itself the
Philosopher's Stone
it would seem to Alchemist the process
of using gold to make more gold would
have been entirely logical to them and
so príncipe figured it wouldn't hurt to
try out following the recipe he mixed a
specially prepared mixture of mercury
and gold balled it down into a buttery
lump at the bottom of a chemical flask
and then buried it sealed in a heated
sand back to his complete and utter
astonishment several days later he
unearthed a flask to find that it was
filled with a glittering and fully
formed tree of gold you see the mixture
of metals had grown upward into a
structure resembling coral or the
branching canopy of a tree the
Philosopher's tree amazing but as it's
seen this wasn't a new idea at all it
was a process based upon another loosely
known alchemical practice and experiment
known as the tree of Diana in which the
gold was replaced for crystallized
silver now it is thought that Diana's
tree was used by Sir Isaac Newton
himself in some of his experiments and
yet here in the scrolling of a long-lost
laboratory notebook was another far more
elusive version yet one that was based
upon very clear and evident findings it
begs the question what other wonders of
alchemy have been lost to the sands of
time what other scientific anomalies had
already been unearthed by these ancient
proto scientists what secrets lie
undiscovered in these long-lost
laboratory notebooks you see how come he
very much is real it paved the way for a
far more clinical approach to furthering
the technological understanding of our
civilization a light bulb a bright spark
that occurred at the dawn of the
Scientific Revolution but the fact that
we have often discounted the mysteries
of this ancient practice as a farcical
fantasy poses a far more interesting
question what else have we forgotten you
see it's human nature to endlessly
advance the species forward pushing for
new boundaries and furthering our
understanding of the natural world after
all science was born from alchemy maybe
in doing so we have already discovered
the Philosopher's Stone and yet we
haven't even realized it like some
transmutation of one type of
civilization to the next like turning
lead into gold
while that we have it a long and short
answer the question what if alchemy is
real it is or it was we've still got a
lot left alert what do you guys think do
you agree with our assessment disagree
have any more to add on the matter then
let us know your thoughts down in the
comment section below
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