The story of the first porcelain made in Europe gives some insight into the older threads, like alchemy, that are woven into modern chemistry, says Roald Hoffmann, a professor of humane letters in the ...

Can alchemy be described as a protoscience? Do ancient texts with obscure formulas and procedures describe mystic rituals and allegoric visions? Or do they record instructions to carry out real ...

An engraved plate attributed to Augsburg printmaker Martin Engelbrecht in the early eighteenth century depicts an 18th-century engraving of a ragged, impoverished alchemist. Before he was a well-known ...

BALTIMORE — An alchemical recipe, kept secret for 400 years, hangs on a wall in the history department at Johns Hopkins University. The message is hidden in a picture of a large and muscular dragon.

A cartoon drawing shows a robed, bearded man with a pet weasel on his shoulder as he examines a piece of paper while sitting at a table containing a book, a flask, and a chunk of gold. Affirmation for ...

IN a narrow sense, alchemy may be interpreted as the pretended art of transmuting the baser metals into silver and gold. In a wider sense it may be defined as the chemistry of the Middle Ages: ...