IT LOOKS a curiously clumsy anachronism, set among the modern Pyrex glass and fume cupboards. Surely this chemistry lab at Indiana University in Bloomington shouldn鈥檛 contain a crude furnace constructed from bricks and mortar. It gets worse: look past the furnace and you鈥檒l see a couple of people hunched in a corner, poring over what appear to be the scrawlings of a madman. What鈥檚 going on 鈥� is this the rebirth of alchemy?
Well, yes, in a way it is. The writings, set out in a laboratory notebook, describe an alchemical experiment that chemists William Newman and Catherine Reck are hoping to carry out. But Newman and Reck are perfectly sane, and so was the man who wrote the scrawls they are trying to decipher. In fact he was arguably the most famous scientist of all time, Sir Isaac Newton.
The last magician
Historians of science have always assumed that Newton鈥檚 interest in alchemy was motivated by abstract philosophical or religious objectives, and something of a stain on his scientific reputation. John Maynard Keynes, who bought many of Newton鈥檚 manuscripts, declared in 1946 that 鈥淣ewton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians鈥�. The Indiana researchers think otherwise. They say that Newton was simply trying to do chemistry 鈥� or as they prefer to call it, 鈥渃hymistry鈥�, a transitional science between the alchemy of the Middle Ages and the chemistry of the 18th-century Age of Reason.
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Contrary to what most people now believe, Newman is convinced that Newton鈥檚 chymical enthusiasms were quite normal for scientists of his time, and that his primary concern was simply to uncover the chemical laws of nature. The notebooks certainly show that Newton made no distinctions between alchemy and what we call science. The very same book in which he recorded his epoch-making experiment of reconstituting white light from its spectral components is filled with recipes culled from alchemical sources. 鈥淎longside sober explanations of optical and physical phenomena such as freezing and boiling,鈥� Newman says, 鈥渨e find 鈥楴eptune鈥檚 Trident鈥�, 鈥楳ercury鈥檚 Caducean Rod鈥� and the 鈥楪reen Lion鈥�, all symbolising alchemical substances.鈥�
So is it possible that Newton鈥檚 alchemical experiments led to scientific discoveries as profound as his more familiar works? The first step in answering that question is to decipher the notebooks. It is no easy task: Newton didn鈥檛 always record his chymical experiments in the most transparent way. Alchemists were notorious for veiling their writings in impenetrable jargon, and Newton made matters even worse by inventing symbols and systems of his own. That is part of the reason why, despite Newton鈥檚 reputation, many of his manuscripts have still not been properly edited and interpreted. 鈥淭hey are in a state of considerable disorder,鈥� Newman says.
Even where the text can be deciphered this only gets you so far. 鈥淎lthough we can make educated guesses about his chymical work from reading,鈥� Newman says, 鈥渢here are often too many variables in chemical research to make it possible to predict an exact outcome from Newton鈥檚 notes.鈥� So Newman and his colleagues set out to repeat the experiments Newton described 鈥� using exactly the same conditions.
Newman insists that to do this it is necessary first to reproduce the apparatus Newton would have worked with. So the researchers have, for starters, reconstructed Newton鈥檚 furnace. 鈥淢odern electrical furnaces don鈥檛 produce the complex mix of gases that resulted from charcoal-burning furnaces, which can generate [chemically] reducing atmospheres,鈥� Newman observes.
Following Newton鈥檚 recipes in every detail, they have produced a pellet of the substance Newton called the 鈥渘et鈥�. It is a purplish alloy of copper and antimony with a dimpled, reticulated surface from which it takes its name. According to his notebooks, Newton learned of it from the Bermudan-born, Harvard-educated alchemist George Starkey, who proposed that the synthesis of the net was, like many other alchemical processes, encoded in a story in Greek mythology.
Metal trees
The researchers have also used Newton鈥檚 notebooks to recreate the tree-like metal structures that may have influenced his manuscript Of Nature鈥檚 Obvious Laws and Processes in Vegetation Some of the trees grow as precipitates of metal salts in a gel of sodium silicate, which chymists in the 17th century called oil of sand; similar branching structures are familiar today in so-called chemical gardens. To Newton and his contemporaries, their organic appearance confirmed the old alchemical idea that metals have a kind of life and can 鈥渧egetate鈥�.
Another of Newman鈥檚 experiments has replicated Newton鈥檚 alchemical synthesis of a crystalline alloy of antimony and iron called the Star Regulus, which forms as radiating, star-like crystalline shards. 鈥淭hese replications can teach us about the actual successes and failures that Newton experienced,鈥� Newman says.
It鈥檚 a lot of hard work, but Newman reckons it is worth the effort. Unravelling the identity of Newton鈥檚 chemical materials and lab methods will eventually help to illuminate the relationship between his experiments and the literature of chrysopoeia 鈥� the transmutation of metals into gold 鈥� that inspired him. Newman has already found from the notebooks that, while Newton learned the alchemical term 鈥淭he Green Lion鈥� from Starkey, he used it to mean a different substance from Starkey鈥檚 antimony and its ores. 鈥淯ntil we understand the meaning of such cryptic terms in Newton鈥檚 notebooks, we will not completely understand his experimentation in alchemy, nor what his ultimate goals were,鈥� Newman says. 鈥淢odern laboratory replication of Newton鈥檚 experiments will help us eventually to crack this enigma.鈥�
Will these investigations reveal Newton to have been as innovative in chemistry as he was in physics, as some historians claim? With many of the experiments in his notebooks yet to be repeated, the jury is still out on that question, but science historian Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore doubts it. 鈥淚 frankly don鈥檛 think that Newton made significant contributions to chemistry,鈥� Principe says. 鈥淢uch of the material in his chymical manuscripts was dependent on work already known or performed on the Continent.鈥�
Even if Newton is shown to have been something of a plodder in chemistry, that will still give us a more complete picture of a man who has since been all but deified. Newman鈥檚 studies mean we now know far more about the context in which Newton did research and wrote his treatises, says Rob Iliffe, a science historian and Newton scholar at Imperial College London. He may not, after all, have been a genius who plucked ideas out of thin air, Iliffe says. 鈥淏ut on the other hand we have a more detailed and subtle understanding of exactly where his brilliance and creativity lay.鈥�
Shades of mystery and the occult
Isaac Newton 鈥� an alchemist? Confronted by Newton鈥檚 alchemical musings while writing his biography in 1855, the physicist David Brewster complained: 鈥淲e cannot understand how a mind of such power, and nobly occupied with the abstractions of geometry, and the study of the material world, could stoop to be even the copyist of the most contemptible alchemical poetry.鈥� To Brewster and his contemporaries, Newton was the paragon of rational thought and mathematical precision, far removed, so they thought, from such suspect alchemical musings.
This assessment now seems to have misunderstood the state of knowledge in Newton鈥檚 time. Alchemy was waning in the late 17th century, but it wasn鈥檛 particularly frowned upon. Many of the greatest scientists continued to believe not only in the possibility of transmuting lead into gold, but also in a host of other ideas that are now regarded as 鈥渙ccult鈥�, such as astrology and prophecy. Studies by Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, have revealed that even Newton鈥檚 colleague Robert Boyle 鈥� whose famous book of 1661, The Sceptical Chymist, has long been interpreted as a damning critique of alchemy 鈥� attempted to transform other metals into gold all his life. This branch of alchemy became known as chrysopoeia.
Boyle and Newton regularly exchanged information about chrysopoeia, often encoded in the arcane terminology of the alchemists. When Boyle died in 1691, Newton was desperate to find out what he had known, scanning through his papers and inveigling from Boyle鈥檚 friend John Locke a sample of a red material that he thought might be a crude form of the Philosopher鈥檚 Stone, the catalyst of transmutation.
It was shortly after Locke sent him Boyle鈥檚 recipe that Newton seems to have succumbed temporarily to mental illness, perhaps brought about by him using extensive distillations of mercury in his efforts to replicate Boyle鈥檚 procedure.
Both Boyle and Newton were strongly influenced by the chymist George Starkey, who became a member of the group of scientific, religious and utopian thinkers associated with the Prussian exile Samuel Hartlib. Some of these men were among the founders of the Royal Society in London in 1660 鈥� an organisation that, far from being a beacon of what we would now consider to be scientific rationalism, was instead set up in an atmosphere of mysticism, occultism and utopian fantasies about secret brotherhoods.
Balancing alchemy
One in 10 of the books in Newton鈥檚 vast library was devoted to alchemy. His copy of On the Transmutations of Metals by Paracelsus, arch-alchemist-wizard of the Renaissance, was dog-eared from extensive use. The American historian Betty Jo Dobbs, one of the first people to tackle Newton鈥檚 alchemical work seriously, concluded that his alchemy was primarily a spiritual concern. Newton had unorthodox Christian views 鈥� he was an anti-Trinitarian who believed that Jesus was created by God as a mortal man as opposed to God incarnate 鈥� and was interested in the biblical prophecies in the books of Daniel and Revelation.
It would not be surprising if his strongly held religious convictions impinged on his alchemical work, but William Newman of Indiana University insists that it is a mistake to interpret all of Newton鈥檚 alchemy as a kind of coded religion. Newman and Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins University argue that 鈥渆soteric鈥� alchemy such as chrysopoeia, with its attendant secrecy and cryptic symbolism, cannot be split off from practical early chemistry of the sort practised by metal-workers, dye-makers and apothecaries. Both are aspects of chymistry, they say, and by separating them Dobbs and other Newton scholars have presented a distorted view of what he was up to. 鈥淣ewton was involved in all of chymistry鈥檚 major branches,鈥� says Newman. 鈥淚ncluding all of Newton鈥檚 work in chemical technology and metallurgy alongside his chrysopoeia will provide a far more balanced picture of his interests.鈥�
