And this document is a doozy for insight into an incredible mind that's at odds with how we've come to view him. It's not just about the recipe he wrote; it's how he arrived at the recipe and the company he kept. It's a handwritten note from a turning point in the history of science, and of the modern world.
COMMENT and let us know if you would try his recipe!
Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, alchemy captured some of the brightest minds of the day.
Alchemists sought to turn normal metals into gold, using the fabled Philospher's Stone.
And hey, who wouldn't want to figure out that secret?
Not even Sir Isaac Newton, one of the smartest men who ever lived, could resist the lure of alchemy.
And for a curious, challenge-seeking mind such as Newton's, plunging into alchemy in the 17th century makes sense.
Recently, a manuscript containing Newton's thoughts and inquiries into alchemy was rediscovered.
And it's proving to be a compelling riddle on its own....
In their pursuit of such a precious secret, alchemists often worded their lab notes in codes and riddles.
Newton was particularly interested in the coded notes of George Starkey, a Harvard-educated alchemist whose work also influenced Sir Robert Boyle, one of the founders of modern chemistry.
Once Newton had cracked Starkey's code, he found a recipe for "sophic mercury", which leads to a tree-like alloy that was thought to be a precursor to the Philosopher's Stone.
However, there's no evidence that Newton went as far as producing his own sophic mercury. Instead, he pursued his own recipes focused on lead ore rather than mercury — a process he jotted down on the back of the manuscript, as researchers have decoded.
Obviously Newton never found a way to make gold from anything because science isn't magic.
Really, if anybody was going to figure it out, it was Newton. Nevertheless, he did manage to take some lessons from his study of alchemy and apply them to physics, and the world is richer for it.
It seems like a fool's errand, but alchemy is all about breaking down metals into their various parts and then re-combining them in different ways.
Newton took that idea and broke down light into its component colors with a prism, a revolutionary discovery that opened up a whole new field of inquiry.
And researchers are still combing the manuscript for insights into Newton's thoughts on alchemy and its coded recipes, so there could be more discoveries to come.
And researchers are still combing the manuscript for insights into Newton's thoughts on alchemy and its coded recipes, so there could be more discoveries to come.
Main image via Sir Isaac Newton Online
Collage image via Chemical Heritage Foundation
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