What does /x/ know about alchemy?

>>18435659
It was the predecessor of chemistry, before we realized that atoms were a thing and that supernatural forces and spirits weren't required for chemical reactions.

Alchemy is exoterically is about chemistry. "Chem" comes from the Egyptian "Kemite", the true name of Egypt. The Kemites were the first alchemists. Kem, as in chemistry. The Greeks and Romans were well known to be in contact with them. And many of their advancements are attributed to the Kemites, including al-chem-y. Esoterically, it is about astrology, esoteric mysteries, and the key to religion and the secrets of life.

>>18435676
What about a philosopher's stone type of thing? Would it be possible?

>>18435681
The philosopher stone is within you. Your immortal soul. Your higher self. The true you and all of your accumulated lives.

>>18435696
tl;dr: the real treasure was friendship

>>18435676

>>18435681
Depends on exactly what you think the philosopher's stone is. In the old practices of alchemy, when spirituality was still considered a part of it, the philosopher's stone was a metaphor for a type of enlightenment.

If you are talking about it in the sense of something that can transform one base element into another, then it exists, but rather than being an actual stone, it's more of a process (usually nuclear). Fusion and fission would be considered this type of transmutation, for example. With fusion, smaller, lighter elements are compacted together to make the heavier elements, such as what occurs in the sun. Fission would be like the atomic bomb, where heavy and unstable elements are split apart into smaller elements.

In fact, in 1924, gold was successfully synthesized from mercury by neutron bombardment. Particle accelerators can be used to similar effect. My explanation is a little lacking since I'm not a physicist, but it's well documented.

In the example of mercury to gold, (as well as most other 'transmutations'), there are two downsides. 1, the energy cost of the process is much more expensive than any value gained from the product itself, and 2, the gold produced this way is a radioactive isotope.

tl;dr, the philosophers stone is the nuclear force.

a better explanation and breakdown, along with some sources for further reading on the subject, can be found here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation

>>18435700

Made me kek, but its true

>>18435756
is it possible that some ancient civilization could have advanced this tech to be more portable and eventually used it in the presence of the early scientists or alchemist? thus giving rise to the idea of the philosophers stone. then later they might have dissappeared like many other ancient civilizations that were supposedly super advanced seem to have done.

>>18435801
possible, but not very probable. I'm more of the belief that people started discovering that you can make new materials by mixing others (early chemistry, cooking, and eventually metallurgy), the idea came about from a lack of understanding that base elements were the foundation of all matter. Before the concept of the atom, people wouldn't have had any way to know if a material was elementally pure, or if it was what we would today refer to as compounds or alloys, at least not until they also started to figure out the different ways of purifying those compounds and alloys back into their base components again.

Even when man started to realize that some things can only be broken down so far, that didn't change the fact that humans are ambitious and like to make the impossible into the possible.

Even after the realizing that base elements couldn't be broken down any further, some people were stubborn and decided "yes, there IS a way to turn lead into gold, we just have to find it!", and people called them crazy for it.

We know now that those "crazies" were right all along. They were just mistaken in their way of going about it.

Back to your original point, I do believe that many modern discoveries are actually "re"discoveries, but I doubt that we've ever been to the point of using nuclear reactors and particle accelerators. Even if all the humans on earth died right now, such monstrous machines, which were built to last, would be around for tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of years before breaking down and corroding to the point of leaving absolutely no evidence left. I'm not saying for sure that it wasn't the case, just that I'm not inclined to believe that without any solid evidence.

>>18435659

IT AIN'T NO HEEB MAGICK LIKE KING SOLOMON I TELL YA HWHAT

>>18435907
cont.d

>>18435801
On the subject of lost technology, though, Damascus comes to mind. Several hundred years ago, we were capable of making such a superior, high quality alloy. Unfortunately, the process of that was lost during the crusades and dark ages. It was only recently (within the past 5 years, iirc) that the process was rediscovered completely by accident. I'm feeling a little too lazy to look up the specifics, but the gist of it was that a lab working on creating new types of plastic polymers just happened to make one that produced a matrixed lattice of carbon nano-tubes (which was a fundamental key in the strength of Damascus) that could then be applied to steel. Before that, the closest we could get was high carbon steel that contained nano-tubes, but not in a structured way that was observed in true Damascus.