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Random question. Historically, why have Lead and Gold been so closely linked? Why did alchemist focus on turning lead into gold (and not start with iron, or a rock like quartz)? Is it just because they're two heavy soft metals?
Random question. Historically, why have Lead and Gold been so closely linked? Why did alchemist focus on turning lead into gold (and not start with iron, or a rock like quartz)? Is it just because they're two heavy soft metals?
Are there economists here? If you could make (non radioactive) gold AND keep it secret, how much (oz?) could you produce a year without substantially affect gold's market value? Asking for a friend.
[0] https://www.lbma.org.uk/alchemist/issue-100/gold-production-...
Are there economists here? If you could make (non radioactive) gold AND keep it secret, how much (oz?) could you produce a year without substantially affect gold's market value? Asking for a friend.
I would hypothesize that if you doubled the gold supply in the world you might only see a 1/3 decrease in price because of these dynamics - but I’m not an expert in that market.
Something from l Ron Hubbard’s mission earth scifi series has stuck with me for years. Basically in preparation for an undercover mission to earth the protagonist (who’s more of an antagonist really) goes to a place in his city full of fusion plants and orders a bunch of gold to bring with him. It ends up being so much gold that it would crash the earth’s economies… But what stuck with me was this idea of ordering el…
It does make you wonder whether the physicists obsession [1] of turning base metals into gold - is the real reason for the LHC :-) [1] Newton famously spent around 30 years of his life on alchemy ( the other stuff were really side projects )
If you’re worried about your funding getting cut, transmuting lead into gold is one way to get around that.
Random question. Historically, why have Lead and Gold been so closely linked? Why did alchemist focus on turning lead into gold (and not start with iron, or a rock like quartz)? Is it just because they're two heavy soft metals?
The transmutation of metals in alchemy is a metaphor for the transmutation of the soul, from its base and sinful nature ("lead") to divinity ("gold".) The means of purifying one was the means of purifying the other, and the "philosopher's stone" alchemists often sought to achieve this was credited for doing both.
Also... it was often an easy grift to get room and board (and money) from wealthy patrons.
Here is a good /r/AskHistorians thread about this[0].
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/114vo4m/alch...
Random question. Historically, why have Lead and Gold been so closely linked? Why did alchemist focus on turning lead into gold (and not start with iron, or a rock like quartz)? Is it just because they're two heavy soft metals?
Most likely. "If we could just make this shinier... we could be rich" Alchemists probably weren't thinking about the gold economy, in that if they figured out how to turn something common like lead into something more rare like gold, that gold would no longer be rare, and they wouldn't be rich for very long.