>>Speaking of Puritans and 1600's -- Neil Stephenson's latest book Quicksilver has a hilarious and I guess more or less historically accurate take on that. 900+ pages of great yarn and chuckles... What a crazy time period that was, what with the 30 year war, Black Death, the forever shifting alliances, the tremendous advancement in scientific discovery and alchemic nonsense.
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>Thanks for the recommendation, Pertti. I just might pick that up.
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>The only problem I have is with those last two words. I once exchanged a couple of e-mails with Gary S. DeWitt. He's written for Advisor a number of times and his bio line always seemed to include the phrase "Senior Software Magician". I mentioned to him that I always thought of myself as a "Software Alchemist", turning bits into gold. So I don't know if I should be offended by those last two words.:-)

George:

Well, the way Alchemists were viewed in the scientific community (think: Newton, Leibnitz, etc.) back then, they were merely an embarrassment to and a hindrance to the advancement of "hard" science (although evidently Newton himself dabbled in Alchemy at one time or another...).

But I guess it depends on what kinds of associations you have with the concept. Paulo Coelho's book "The Alchemist" is certainly one of my all time favorites, but Coelho deals with the concept in a whole different way than Neil Stephenson.

So, no need to feel offended -- there are alchemists, and then there are Alchemists <g>.


Pertti