The secret code of the alchemists

Science historian Larry Principe studies the European alchemists, proto-chemists who tried to turn base metals into gold by combining mythology, religion, and the beginnings of true science. In this video, he explains why alchemists' notebooks—their records of experiments—are so difficult to understand, and how an alchemist might have gone about turning a science experiment into fanciful, analogy-filled secret code.

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Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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There are some great history of chemistry (or science in general) which treat this in detail. A good one, with pictures, is Aurthur Greenberg’s “A Chemical History Tour: Picturing chemistry from Alchemy to Modern Molecular Science”. It’s pretty readable for the non-chemist, and talks a lot about the symbolism used by the alchemists.

http://www.amazon.com/Chemical-History-Tour-Picturing-Chemistry/dp/0471354082
http://profiles.google.com/j.r.parsons J.R. Parsons

Last name should be spelled “Principe” (I took two classes from this guy, he’s fantastic.)
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Fixed! Thanks.
Emo Pinata

I know plenty of chemists that still fill their notebooks with secret codes for both IP and job security reasons. Pretty sure the tradition is still going strong.
http://twitter.com/enkiv2 John Ohno

He completely glossed over the distinction between physical alchemy and spiritual alchemy. Although there were plenty of physical alchemists (who were actually performing chemistry and attempting to make real gold out of real lead), there were also plenty of spiritual alchemists who used language similar to that of the physical alchemists in order to protect their books (essentially self-help books about how to be a better person — lead to gold being a metaphor for man to superman, to use modern terminology) from the heresy police.
- aldhelm
  
  Back in the day, there was no distinction. It was just alchemy.
fxq

I loved the book “Star Winds”. It combines alchemy and sci-fi and it’s kinda hokey but I love it. — esp the descriptions of the alchemy code/illustrations. I always wanted to do a D&D campaign based on that book.
http://dougsamu.wordpress.com doug rogers

One of the very first articles Zite turned up for me was this talk “Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour” by Philip Ball. http://www.philipball.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61:bright-earth&catid=16:colour&Itemid=18
http://www.facebook.com/people/Erik-Knutzen/100002417832447 Erik Knutzen

John makes a good point. The alchemists (at least the serious ones) did not distinguish between the spiritual and the material. The imagery of alchemy is not just some sort of veiled code for chemical experiments. Rather, it’s a metaphysical language.
The Hamster King

“Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”
Blaze Curry

I seem to recall a story on the tube I listened to while playing a video game talking about how a lot of the old mythologies in the alchemy-rich regions of the world were actually steganographic recipes.
Can’t remember what that show was called though…was too busy blasting necrophiliac aliens or something.
Petzl

Blah blah blah. Typical scientist. When does he get to the part about how to make gold?
knoxblox

His walls are rather bare. More artwork, Larry!
Aaron Rowe

@John and Eric

The man has written a stack of books on alchemy. This is a short video clip. He can’t make all of the points you made in a four minute clip.
Spriggan_Prime

I love his listing of his CV at the end with obligatory three-quarter head turn while gazing thoughtfully upwards feel free to paint me portrait in oils and hang it in the scientific halls of prestige pose. Priceless.