Alchemy: History of Science #10

In fantasy stories, charlatans in fancy robes promise to turn lead into gold. But real alchemists weren’t just mystical misers. They were skilled experimentalists, backed by theories of matter.
And they played a huge role in the development of knowledge about one of our fundamental questions: “what is stuff?”

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[Taneth]

When I was 4, I tried to unburn a slice of toast by putting it in the fridge. I ended up with cold burned toast. Alchemy!

[Biohazbird]

Alchemy was basically smart creative people with philosophical minds throwing random stuff together, having no idea how anything worked, but kept getting results so fascinating and strange that they couldn't help but keep doing it while they tried to figure out the secrets of the universe and themselves in the process. Then were so mindblown by it all that they had trouble taking good notes. How lovely.

[elijahking]

When you're genuinely interested in ancient forgotten knowledge such as alchemy but all the comments are about full metal alchemist

[Graser]

Real talk though, this video just made me appreciate how much research Arakawa put into FMA. Like, one of the big alchemy guy's names having "von Hohenheim" in it. That same guy coining "Alkahest." Chinese alchemy being based on "Earth magic." God bless Hiromu Arakawa.

[macmac]

Me at 0:00: I'll be disappointed if there's no FMA references...
Me at 5:06: First of all, how dare you.

[midnightd]

"The wind blows over the marriage of the moon and saturn" - 10:45

Well based from your video it probably has something to do with combining Silver and Lead. Moon being Silver and Saturn being Lead, the marriage obviously refers to joining the two metals and the wind blowing over, either has something to do with cooling it afterwards to get the desired result, or something to do with the process of joining the two metals.

[Skeletonz]

Fullmetal Alchemist was in the back of my head the whole entire video. and when Hohenheim was mentioned i had a literal epiphany moment

[sonofagun]

The key to understand how important Alchemy is to modern day science is to understand that it was science in its infancy state. Just as we don’t expect a new born to walk immediately after birth' we should understand that early scientists had many pseudoscience ideologies until scientific principles were established. Intellectual evolution is constantly enhancing and growing!

[bmi]

Don't forget that Alchemy was also a very spiritual practice, as it's mainly derived (in the European tradition) from ancient Hermetic texts and writings.

[priyanshupradhan]

thanks for the FMA reference and not for the nina reference

[eave]

2:30 aristotle

7:59 Jabbir Ibn Hayyan 721 born
Minerology
Medicine

7:40 medicine in india

8:30 Paracelstus 1493

9:55 Gutenberg

[Palisade]

Damn, Full metal alchemist was well researched

[Nazareeni]

So let me get this straight.


It was an alchemist that invented gunpowder.
It was an alchemist that invented the printing press.
It was an alchemist that discovered the laws of gravity.


These are arguably 3 of the most revolutionary things that have ever altered human history. Yet ironically alchemy was flushed out for being superstitious and shifty.

[darthsavage]

I shed a tear when I saw Nina & Alexander

[DagarCoH]

Just another interesting alchemy story: Johann Böttger claimed to be able to make lead into gold. In 1701 he was incarcerated by the king of saxony for that claim; since the king was short on money Böttger should prove it. He tried to flee several times, but in the end managed to make porcelain (or at least aided in it; some claim Tschirnhaus, a contemporary and colleague of Böttger actually made it, and Tschirnhaus also was the one who had been researching on porcelain for a long time before). After confessing to the king that he was unable to make gold (another alchemist had been executed in Prussia for the false claim) and after Tschirnhaus' death, Böttger got a management position in the newly founded and soon to be famous porcelain manufactory in Meissen. In the end, he regained his full freedom after 13 years of incarceration.

[thehopeofeden]

I cannot be the only one thinking of Fullmetal Alchemist right now.

[SophieHatterLeFay]

Edward Elric is still my favorite Alchemist in history

[wisemoon]

Thanks for mentioning Isaac Newton. Ever since I read "Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer" I've been telling people about Newton's experiments in alchemy and how they affected his theories. It's rare to see anyone point out that alchemy positively influenced the development of science--even if alchemy itself was mostly nonsense.

[squareenix]

dude, after watching this, it is so cool how many real world historical elements were implemented in fmab. I gotta watch that anime again

[MyrmidonsProductions]

Alchemy really is responsible for our modern scientific method. Also it was deffnitly studying the idea of things changing and how they act in the real world. there are plenty of books and novels on the subject.