>>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...).
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>Actually, Newton was hardcore in to alchemy along with biblical prophecy and alot of other crap, obsessing over it to a large degree. Some biographies say that the other ten percent of the stuff he thought about he did for laughs, and this became modern physics and mathematics.

Mike:

You are correct.

"...during the crucial part of Newton's scientific career -- the two decades between his discovery of the law of gravity and the publication of his masterwork, the "Principia Mathematica" -- his consuming passion was alchemy. Bunkered in his solitary live-in lab at the edge of the fens near Cambridge, Newton indulged in occult literature and strove to cook up the legendary "philosopher's stone" that would convert base metals into gold." (Wall Street Journal Bookshelf, Feb. 19, 1998).

I guess "dabbling in alchemy" is a bit too mild of an expression to describe his immersion in alchemy for a good 20 years! Be as it may, his memory lives on in popular imagination as the guy who got bonked in the head by an apple, and thereafter "discovered" gravity. In some ways, he may have been the original "Wild and Crazy Guy".

However, as far as I know, eventually Newton did end up abandoning and even discrediting alchemy, and thereafter was generally thought of as one of the "hard" scientists of his time.

In 1942, after reading a bunch of Newton's lesser known original writings, famed Economist John Maynard Keynes ended up declaring: "Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians." Which wraps up nicely back to the beginning of this sub-thread, where George Tasker mentioned how some software writers like to fancy themselves as magicians, while some others prefer to view themselves as alchemists. <bg>


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