Alchemy

From ancient times, men have valued and wanted gold. As a consequence, they made a lot of effort to try and convert materials into gold. The process was called alchemy.

Many legends and stories had the alchemy theme in them. The Midas Touch is the most famous instance. The Philosopher’s Stone was supposed to be able to convert anything into gold (The Philosopher’s Stone in the Harry Potter book had nothing to do with gold though).

Did anyone actually succeed at alchemy though? According to Marco Polo, the answer was Yes. Kublai Khan had “mastered the art of alchemy”! Huh? Why Marco Polo came to that conclusion makes for an interesting story. Today, we take paper currency for granted. But that was not always the case. In fact, the Chinese were the first to use paper currency. During Marco Polo’s time, the Europeans still used gold or silver or other metals as currency, not paper. So when Marco Polo came to China and saw the Khan give his paper currency in return for gold within his kingdom, it felt like magic. To Marco Polo, it seemed that the Khan had converted paper into gold. The Khan had performed alchemy!

A few centuries later, advances in chemistry had ruled out the possibility of alchemy. Not just that, chemistry had ruled out the conversion of one element into any other element (not just gold). Any scientist who said he believed in alchemy was likely to never be taken seriously.

And today, people like us don’t believe in alchemy either. But guess how nuclear weapons work? It’s through a process called nuclear fission. The elements used in fission are radioactive. And radioactive elements transform into other elements. Now that’s alchemy in action!

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