ANTH 392 Ted Talk_Emily Perkovic

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Oct 30, 2023

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ANTH 392 Ted Talk: Alchemy (Zosimos) 300/400 Imagine you could turn copper to gold, with not much more than a few simple chemicals. Creating gold was not such a far-fetched idea for alchemists of the past like Zosimos of Panopolis. Transmutation is the process of making gold or silver from an abundant metal, like copper. The first mentions of transmutation occur around 300 AD in writings attributed to Zosimos where . In these writings he breaks down the instruments and equipment requiredrequirements for the studying of metals and other substances. Zosimos was an Egyptian alchemist and Gnostic mystic, who was born in Panopolis at the end of the 3rd century. Gnosticism is an ancient spiritual movement which valued personal spiritual knowledge over organized religion, which complements the natural philosophical and proto- scientific nature of alchemy. Alchemy, derived from the old name for Egypt Khemia meaning “black earth” emerged as a combination of primitive science, metallurgy, mysticism, philosophy, religion, astrology and various other occult sciences. Zosimos is the oldest known alchemical author, he provided the first definition of alchemy in his books which he defines as “The composition of waters, movement, growth, embodying and disembodying, drawing the spirits from bodies and bonding the spirits within bodies.” Zosimos Gnostic faith is evident in his writings, he asserts that fallen angels originally taught metallurgy and transmutation to the women they married. Zosimos theorised that metals had two components: a solid body and a volatile spirit. He believed that a metals spirit gave it it’s colour and unique properties. This theory lays the foundations for his alchemistic practices:, if a metal has two parts it’s not unreasonable to believe that two can be separated and recombined. Creating silver and gold was the heart of alchemical practice. Most transmutations however are more show that substance; which lead alchemists to use obscure language in their writings, to hide their short comings. With a myriad of specialized instruments for distillation, sublimation, filtration and fixation, copper was turned to gold by exposing it to cadmia or to silver by exposing it to mercury and arsenic and silver was combined with water of sulphur to produce gold. However, these were not true transmutations. The only way to actually change lead to gold is to change its atomic protons which was not possible in Zosimos’s time and is quite energetically costly so not often attempted. The first case of this was in 1972 when a Soviet physicist accidentally turned the lead shielding of an experimental reactor to gold, thereby proving that transmutation was actually possible while also creating the reactor of a

supervillain’s dreams. . So, while not as widely available as ancient alchemists had hoped transmutation is now a reality.

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