![]() ![]() Consequently, alchemical notation tended to the phantasmical figures and astrological imagery common in pre-Copernican cosmologies (pre 1543) and Kabbalistic musings, which did not survive the advent of modern chemistry. As a means of transmuting metals, they adopted linguistic manipulation of the meaning and numeric value of Hebrew words, to effect material manipulations, notably to make gold or silver from baser components (Figure 2).Ī major flaw in the alchemical approach was the absence of an appropriate general graphic or textual notation to aid in conceptualization. ![]() ![]() To characterize their concoctions, they drew figures and patterns, imagined dragons, geometric shapes, copulating groups or Kabbalistic re-ordering of letters of words. But they could not describe what occurred in the flasks and retorts in which they concocted or distilled potions or poisons, or “transmuted” metals into gold. Alchemists attempted to develop graphic notations to represent the transformations of materials. Modern chemical notation has its roots in the alchemy of earlier civilizations (Egypt, Jewish, Babylonia, Greece, Arabia). The above recipe describes steps for manipulating matter, to synthesize “living silver” ( argent vif) (6, p 45). He was one of the first alchemists, after whom the Hermetic Arts are named. Translated quotation from an emerald plaque found in the tomb of Hermes Trismegiste in the Grand Pyramid (Egypt). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |