A Legitimate Pursuit
NOVA:Why are people surprised when they hear that Isaac Newton—the grandpatriarch of physics—was an alchemist?
NEWMAN: Well, I think it's because alchemy has been portrayed as theepitome of irrationality and a sort of avaricious folly.
NOVA: Sinister, dark-robed sorcerers trying to turn lead into gold.Is that an accurate picture of alchemists in Newton's time?
NEWMAN: It's accurate for some alchemists. But we now know that most ofthe great minds of the period were involved in alchemy, including Robert Boyle,John Locke, Leibniz, any number of others.
NOVA: Given that so many great minds were interested in it, why wasalchemy illegal?
NEWMAN: Well, first of all, it became legal during Newton's time. Butwhy was it illegal? There's a long association, for good reasons, betweenalchemy and counterfeiting. It's quite likely, actually, that medieval andearly modern rulers were consciously employing alchemists to debase their owncoinage.
NOVA: But they didn't want other people doing it?
NEWMAN: [laughter] Yeah, right; exactly, exactly.
“He really thought that alchemy provided a sort of limitless powerover nature.”
NOVA: So what were these "legitimate" alchemists in the 17th centurytrying to do?
NEWMAN: Alchemy really encompassed all chemicaltechnology—everything ranging from the manufacture of pigments for paintto making artificial precious stones. It included the manufacture of so-called"chemical medicines." And, of course, it also included the attempt to make the"philosophers' stone."
NOVA: Tell me about the philosophers' stone. I think of it vaguely assome magical substance that could turn ordinary metals into gold.
NEWMAN: The philosophers' stone was thought to be an agent of universaltransmutation. It also was viewed as a curative agent that could "cure" metalsof their impurities and cure human beings of their illnesses. So it was a sortof universal panacea.
NOVA: Was Newton an alchemist because he wanted to make gold or find thekey to immortality? Or was his alchemy just another part of his science—away to gain knowledge about the material world?
NEWMAN: If you look at the experimental notebooks that he kept for about30 years, it really is impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was trying toproduce the philosophers' stone. But I don't think he was doing it to gainmonetary wealth.
NOVA: Was it to gain an understanding of nature?
NEWMAN: And power over nature. Power over nature has always been a keyelement to alchemy.
Codes and Riddles
NOVA: Did alchemists think that they were going to discover powers theywanted to keep for themselves? Is that why alchemy is so veiled in secretcodes?
NEWMAN: That's certainly part of the reason. You find alchemicaltreatises that claim that knowledge of the philosophers' stone has to be keptsecret, because if it gets out to the world that a particular alchemist has it,he'll be strangled in his bed to extract the secret.
NOVA: It seems that Newton also wanted to hold tight to hissecrets—he never published any of his alchemical work.
NEWMAN: I think that, like other alchemists, he thought that alchemypromised tremendous control over the natural world. It would allow you totransmute virtually anything into anything else, not just lead into gold. Thereare other things, too, that probably were in Newton's mind. For example,alchemists realized that if the philosophers' stone were real and it got out tothe public, it would ruin the gold standard. [laughter]
“Alchemy was the ultimate riddle [which] provided a challenge to him that he just couldn’t resist.”
NOVA: I think what makes a lot of people think of alchemy as black magicis this bizarre language—phrases like "the Green Dragon" or the"menstrual blood of the sordid whor*."
NEWMAN: Yes.
NOVA: It's mind-boggling to think of Newton writing those phrases.
NEWMAN: Well, this was the enigmatic language of alchemy. I mean"enigmatic" in a quite strict sense: it was a riddling language. The best wayto look at these metaphors is in the light of riddles. So the "menstrual bloodof the sordid whor*" is decipherable. It means simply the metalline form ofantimony. That is the "menstrual blood" that's extracted from the "sordidwhor*," which is the ore of antimony. [See more of Newton's alchemy decoded inour interactive manuscript.]
NOVA: It's a coded language.
NEWMAN: It is a code, and it's clear that the alchemists delighted inthis code. It's almost a form of poetry. In fact, lots of alchemists wrote inthe form of poetry, quite literally.
NOVA: Did all alchemists share the same code, use the same terminology?
NEWMAN: They shared lots of common elements, but it did vary fromalchemist to alchemist. It's extremely tricky for Newton. He was readingalchemists over a period of time, ranging over perhaps a thousand years, andthere was a lot of development in these treatises. But Newton generally thinksthey're all saying the same thing, so that's a problem.
NOVA: Why did Newton spend so much time copying the writing of otheralchemists?
NEWMAN: He wasn't for the most part just copying verbatim. What he wasdoing in many cases was weaving together extracts from different authors,trying to make sense out of them. I think alchemy was the ultimate riddle.Newton delighted in riddles, and this provided a challenge to him that he justcouldn't resist.
Revealed Wisdom For a Chosen Few
NOVA: Why did Newton think that Greek myths somehow encoded alchemicalrecipes and a path to the philosophers' stone?
NEWMAN: That theory had been in existence for quite a long time.Newton's major source in alchemy, George Starkey, shared this theory. MichaelMaier is a famous writer of the early 17th century who tried to decipher asmuch Greek mythology as he could get his hands on. So it was a common belief.
NOVA: Was it part of a broader belief in some sort of "revealed wisdom"about the natural world?
NEWMAN: Oh, yes. There's a tradition of scholarship that was verypopular in the Renaissance called the prisca sapientia, the primalwisdom. It claimed that there was a secret wisdom that was first transmitted byan archetypical figure—say, for example, Moses—and then passed downthrough a line of successors, usually including Pythagoras, Plato, and soforth, and that this wisdom was really the ultimate tool for understanding theuniverse. Newton clearly believed that.
NOVA: Did Newton view himself as one of these chosen few, one of thepeople ordained to receive this wisdom?
NEWMAN: I suspect he did, yes. I don't think he would have admitted itpublicly, but one of his pastimes was concocting alchemical pseudonyms forhimself. And one of these pseudonyms was Jehovah Sanctus Unus—that is,Jehovah, the Holy One.
NOVA: That's how Newton described himself?!
NEWMAN: Yes!
“It’s really a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, and we’re only at the beginning ofhaving solved it.”
NOVA: Did Newton think that he made progress in developing thephilosophers' stone?
NEWMAN: Yes, I think that's quite clear. If you look at his manuscripts,there are stages of development that you can isolate. In his experimentalnotebooks, there are entries where he says "I found the caduceus of Mercurytoday" and this sort of thing that reflect real discoveries that he's made inthe laboratory.
Newton Under Wraps
NOVA: After Newton's death, why did none of his writings on alchemy cometo light? Certainly people going through his papers came across this writing.Was it viewed as not worthy of him?
NEWMAN: Oh, yeah. There's no question that they were considered to beborderline scandalous. Newton died in 1727. By that time you're well into theEnlightenment, and alchemy had become the domain of dunces; it was associatedwith all sorts of useless medieval knowledge. So the fact that Newton had beena serious student of this obsolete and idiotic field was really problematic.
NOVA: Do you think that today we should think less of Newton, knowinghow deeply devoted he was to alchemy?
NEWMAN: No. On the contrary, I think that this opens up a side of Newtonthat makes him a much more fascinating figure. And I think also thefact that so many of these very, very seminal figures in the ScientificRevolution were heavily involved in alchemy opens up a new historiographicalarea that really promises to throw quite a different light on the whole period.
NOVA: It opens our eyes to the incredibly wide range of Newton'sintellectual pursuits.
NEWMAN: Yeah, it's very important to see the full breadth of Newton'sinquiries. And the dreams that were embodied in his alchemical pursuits explainto some degree how and why he was such a driven man. I think he really thoughtthat alchemy provided a sort of limitless power over nature.
NOVA: And even though he recognized that he hadn't solved all theproblems in alchemy, he truly felt that he had made strides.
NEWMAN: Well, of course, he's famous for having said that he felt asthough he were only a boy on a seashore, having picked up a pretty shell, andthat there were many, many other shells remaining to be discovered on the edgeof this vast sea. That's what he said about his scientific endeavor as a whole,not just his alchemy.
Remaining Puzzles
NOVA: You've said that Newton's alchemy is still a great unsolvedmystery. Why?
NEWMAN: In part because his experimental notebooks are so cryptic. Theseexperimental notebooks pick up in 1678, and there is a story that there was afire in Newton's laboratory immediately before that. So it's likely that wewould have more materials if they hadn't been destroyed in this conflagration.Also, Newton doesn't bother to explain his terminology; being Newton, heexpects to know his terminology.
And the terminology is very perplexing. He uses standard alchemicaldecknamen—cover-names like the Green Lion and the BabylonianDragon, and so forth—but he seems to be using them in ways that don'tcorrespond to how his immediate sources used them. So we have to carry out ahuge combined effort, both in our laboratory and in studying the texts, todetermine what these substances were.
Beyond that, Newton doesn't tell us why he's doing the experiments. He justsays, "I did this and that, and I produced a volatile substance here," and soforth. He doesn't say the purpose of the experiment! So all of this has to beinferred and put together. It's really a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, and we're onlyat the beginning of having solved it.
NOVA: Wow. Do you enjoy actually getting into the lab and trying toreproduce what he might have been doing with his crucible?
NEWMAN: Oh, absolutely. And in many cases, you can reproduce theproducts very clearly. It's satisfying, but it's a heck of a lot of work.[laughter]
NOVA: As you continue studying the manuscripts and replicating hisexperiments, what do you hope to find?
NEWMAN: Well, there are a number of different things. One thing I'mtrying to do is determine the chronology of the different manuscripts, so thatwe can say exactly how his ideas developed over time. Like I said, it's agigantic jigsaw puzzle. I would just like to be able to put all the piecestogether and see what he was really trying to do, what his goals were, and howthis fit with his natural philosophy.
NOVA: And if you succeed in making the philosophers' stone, you'll let usknow?
NEWMAN: [laughter] If I succeed, I'll disappear. 
