Once upon a time, transmutation of the elements was a really big deal. Alchemists drove their patrons near to bankruptcy chasing the philosopher’s stone to no avail, but at least we got ...

Part of the appeal of the Boyle myth may be that it promised a clean break: a waymark at which alchemy was cast aside and chemistry took over. But such changes rarely if ever happen in science, and ...

“THE history of Alchemy is the history of an error.” Such was, about seventy years ago, Hermann Kopp's short summary of centuries of attempts to transmute ...