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movements.
Claims and frauds
The concept of a substance that could turn inexpensive metals into valuable gold
naturally attracted the attention of many entrepreneurs of all sorts learned and
amateurish, skeptical and gullible, honest and dishonest. An example that illustrates the
spirit of the times is that of Rudolf II (1552-1612). This king of Bohemia, having found
himself in financial difficulties, decided to invest heavily in the search for the
philosopher's stone. He thus attracted to Prague a large number of alchemists, who were
given ample material and financial support, and promised rewards if they could solve the
problem. This "virtual gold rush" may have involved even the Danish astronomer Tycho
Brahe, then at Rudolf's court, who had an alchemical lab built on the grounds of his
observatory.
Rudolf never saw his dream realized, and he eventually became insane and had to be
deposed by his relatives. It is not known whether his insanity was due to natural causes,
or to misuse of alchemical "remedies" which often included toxic materials like
sulphur, lead, mercury, arsenic, and antimony.
Edward Kelley
Among those who took Rudolf's offer were the English scholar John Dee, and his
assistant Edward Kelley, one of the many alchemists who have claimed possession of the
philosopher's stone.
Specifically, Kelley claimed that he had acquired in England small amounts of two
powders, one white and one red, which had allegedly been found in Wales, in the raided
tomb of a Bishop. From these two powders, Kelley would prepare a red "tincture", one
drop of which could turn a larger quantity of heated mercury into gold. There are reports
that he performed this feat several times, once even in the presence of Rudolf's court
officials, and the gold was later tested and found to be genuine. He is also reported as
sending to queen Elizabeth I of England a copper bed warmer which had been partly
transmuted into gold.
Kelley also carried with him a cryptic manuscript, which he claimed had been found with
the powders, and which presumably held the secret of their manufacture. On the basis of
these claims, Kelley obtained much support from Rudolf so much so that, when Dee
broke with him and returned to England, Kelley chose to remain in Prague. However,
Kelley eventually ran out of his magic powders, was jailed by Rudolf in a tower of his
castle, and died of injuries sustained in an extravagant escape attempt.
The nature of Kelley's powders is open to conjecture. Gold can be dissolved by aqua
regia to give a red-colored chloride, from which the metal can be easily recovered by heat
or simple chemical means. Although that salt has a tendency to decompose on its own, it
seems at least possible that Kelley simply plated a layer of gold on some other metal
(possibly dissolved in the mercury to form an amalgam) and then used sleight-of-hand or
bribery to pass the goldsmith's test.
The stone and modern science
Though the notion of a simple philosopher's stone of the alchemic sense fell out of
scientific conception by at least the 19th century, its metaphors and imagery persisted:
man's attempt to discover the essential secret of the universe, redemptively transforming
not just lead into gold, but death into life.
In 1901, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy discovered that radioactivity was a sign
of fundamental changes within elements, and it was Soddy who quickly made the
connection between this and the ancient search for the philosopher's stone (Soddy had
studied alchemy extensively as a hobby). At the moment of realization that their
radioactive thorium was converting itself into radium, bit by bit, Soddy later recalled that
he shouted out: "Rutherford, this is transmutation!" Rutherford snapped back, "For
Christ's sake, Soddy, don't call it transmutation. They'll have our heads off as
alchemists." However the term stuck, in part because it drew the new discoveries in
nuclear physics into a longer cultural and mystical web.
When it was discovered that radioactivity was also tapping into a latent source of energy
bound inside atoms, this furthered the thought that radioactive decay might be the
ultimate philosopher's stone. Later, the discovery of nuclear fission would become
consciously connected into the same narrative, especially with optimistic hopes of energy
"too cheap to meter" and great utopian cities of the future run on nuclear energy.
The stone in art and entertainment
The philosopher's stone has been subject, inspiration, or plot feature of innumerable
artistic works novels, comics stories, movies, animations, and even musical
compositions. It is also a popular item in many video games. The following is a very
incomplete list.
Novels
" Philosopher's Stone, by Hans Christian Andersen.
" The Trumpeter of Krakow (1928), by Eric P. Kelly.
" The Philosopher's Stone (Colin Wilson book) (1971), by C. H. Wilson.
" The Ogre Downstairs (1974), by Diana Wynne Jones.
" The Alchemist (1988), by Paulo Coelho.
" Foucault's Pendulum (1988), byUmberto Eco , where a character claims that the
Stone is actually the mythical Holy Grail.
" Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997), by J. K. Rowling.
" The Baroque Cycle trilogy (2003 2004), by Neal Stephenson, where it is used to
explain an unusually dense gold sample.
" Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone (1995), by Max McCoy.
Musical works
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