A "heads up!" NOVA to broadcast a show on Newton's Alchemy work.

As a chemist, I have always wondered what the world would be like had Newton published his Alchemy work. He kept it hidden, apparently thinking it was some kind of superstition.

This may be a rebroadcast, but I've not seen it. It will be on PBS on Tuesday night.

(unless my son's baseball team has a game then! :( )

Have you checked out the accompanying website? There are related links - even a "teacher's guide" that really supplements the program.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newton/

Thanks!

Classical alchemy, though it also was about real experiments with chemicals, was ALSO about a class of sexual practices that had magickal intent and the formulae for which are found in the classical alchemical work by analogy.

since he died a virgin (at least as far as we know). :-(

...but some alchemists seem to have been unaware of the hidden meanings of the texts.

I am aware that the original alchemists were not scientists in the classical sense in which we think of scientists today, as people who try to formulate laws of nature based on experiment. However many important discoveries that would lay the groundwork for modern chemistry, originated from alchemy, much in the same way that astrologers laid the ground work for astronomy. Some figures were transitional, Paracelsus, for instance, who is often thought of as being the inspiration for the fictional character Dr. Faustus.

This though, was Newton. I have no idea what Newton's intent was in doing this alchemical work - he was in modern terms a strange man - but I cannot help but think that his failure to publish on the subject set the science of chemistry back if not for centuries, then decades.

As I would guess you know, Newton was not inclined to publish the Principia either. Edmund Halley prevailed upon Newton to publish that work. Without Halley's insistence, that part of physics might have remained unknown as well.

The sexual union symbolised in both astrology and alchemy represent the unification of opposites - male and female, the self and the universal, nothing and everything - in order to find peace and transcend in a spiritual manner.

both have the same goal: the base state of life is transformed into a more pure form of living where one has lost attachment to things which are transient (such as earthly desires, fear, etc) and attempts to unify with the universal (or divine). It's not very well known, but the ritual sex popular in both Tantra and Alchemical ritual is meant to be symbolic of joining, of the sum being greater than the parts, and in that sense can be seen as symbolic of chemistry - of making a new substance by combining two substances.

I'm not saying I believe in either, by the way, but I have studied both in a more academic sense, and feel that both are maligned as being just about funky sex ritual.

What are the colours of the rainbow?

:D

Roy G. Biv is the guy's nom de guerre.

pretend you don't know that, and have a look at a rainbow :)

It wasn't all that illuminating about the chemistry, although it made it clear that the results, though coded, probably involved some wonderful insights.

I loved the show. On the one hand it did show someone now replicating Newton's alchemy work. Somebody made a purple concoction that is supposed to be the first step to getting "The Philosopher's Stone." It wasn't totally clear but the recipe was somehow taken from Newton's coded work and also decoding of that myth that so entranced me when reading the Iliad (or maybe it was another myth, but it involved Venus making love with someone, and a net being cast around them). On the other hand the show dismissed the alchemy work of Newton as not being productive. After all, he published nothing on it. But after seeing the show, it seemed to be almost a total accident that he even informed anyone about calculus--just a simple question from Halley led to his Principia. It was decades after he developed calculus that he published the work.

I really learned a lot. Newton, I realized, was something of a religious fanatic. But I had no idea that he had to hide his heretical ways, since he did not believe in the Trinity (yet taught at Trinity College--eek).

But back to the alchemy--it was suggested that Newton's work on gravity was a direct result of his "occult" work in alchemy. The suggestion was that he was very open to the idea of a totally invisible force. Needless to say, his work on gravity was not immediately accepted. It really seemed occult at the time.

One thing is for sure, he was not a bible thumper type. If he were alive today he would be a progressive and would put away notions of a creator or a god. He would gravitate toward Gould, Ruse, Hawking, or even Shermer and Randi and others, all of which reject the notion of creationism and a personal type of god. The show was okay but I wish they would not have wasted so much time with religionist clap, that was not his contribution.

The show seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

I have known about the alchemical work for some time, and I aware that he hid it.

What I learned from the show was that much of what he wrote was written in alchemist's code and that readers of the work need to understand that code in order to understand what Newton did.

As for the question of whether Newton was a bible thumper, I think that the concept of bible thumpers is relatively modern, and would have made zero sense in Newton's time. Very clearly he thought a great deal about the bible and religion. This is not surprising for a man of his times.

I think you're projecting the present on to the past.

As for whether Newton would have "gravitated" toward anyone, I have always heard that Newton was a very difficult man, that he was cold and often insufferable. Newton basically didn't care about other people. He seems to have few, if any, close personal friends. Many people examining his life have gone so far as to suggest he had a severe personality disorder: Asperger's syndrome is sometimes mentioned. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2988647.stm I have read that he took pleasure in executing counterfeiters when he headed the mint.

In some ways, the fact that Newton was not a nice person but that his existence has proved essential to humanity underscores something that really escapes notice these days. Charm and grace are not always as important as skill and intelligence.