Alchemists Of Revolution

Alchemists Of Revolution PDF Author: Richard E. Rubenstein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Neither a call to "exterminate the beasts" nor a soft-hearted "sympathy for the devil" [the book] is a compelling argument that the surest way to unintentionally abet a terrorist organization is to deny its authenticity.--Blurb.

Alchemists Of Revolution

Alchemists Of Revolution PDF Author: Richard E. Rubenstein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Neither a call to "exterminate the beasts" nor a soft-hearted "sympathy for the devil" [the book] is a compelling argument that the surest way to unintentionally abet a terrorist organization is to deny its authenticity.--Blurb.

Atoms and Alchemy

Atoms and Alchemy PDF Author: William R. Newman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226577031
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Since the Enlightenment, alchemy has been viewed as a sort of antiscience, disparaged by many historians as a form of lunacy that impeded the development of rational chemistry. But in Atoms and Alchemy, William R. Newman—a historian widely credited for reviving recent interest in alchemy—exposes the speciousness of these views and challenges widely held beliefs about the origins of the Scientific Revolution. Tracing the alchemical roots of Robert Boyle’s famous mechanical philosophy, Newman shows that alchemy contributed to the mechanization of nature, a movement that lay at the very heart of scientific discovery. Boyle and his predecessors—figures like the mysterious medieval Geber or the Lutheran professor Daniel Sennert—provided convincing experimental proof that matter is made up of enduring particles at the microlevel. At the same time, Newman argues that alchemists created the operational criterion of an “atomic” element as the last point of analysis, thereby contributing a key feature to the development of later chemistry. Atomsand Alchemy thus provokes a refreshing debate about the origins of modern science and will be welcomed—and deliberated—by all who are interested in the development of scientific theory and practice.

Distilling Knowledge

Distilling Knowledge PDF Author: Bruce T. MORAN
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674041224
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Reacting to the perception that the break, early on in the scientific revolution, between alchemy and chemistry was clean and abrupt, Moran literately and engagingly recaps what was actually a slow process. Far from being the superstitious amalgam it is now considered, alchemy was genuine science before and during the scientific revolution. The distinctive alchemical procedure--distillation--became the fundamental method of analytical chemistry, and the alchemical goal of transmuting "base metals" into gold and silver led to the understanding of compounds and elements. What alchemy very gradually but finally lost in giving way to chemistry was its spiritual or religious aspect, the linkages it discerned between purely physical and psychological properties. Drawing saliently from the most influential alchemical and scientific texts of the medieval to modern epoch (especially the turbulent and eventful seventeenth century), Moran fashions a model short history of science volume

Gehennical Fire

Gehennical Fire PDF Author: William R. Newman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226577142
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Both the quest for natural knowledge and the aspiration to alchemical wisdom played crucial roles in the Scientific Revolution, as William R. Newman demonstrates in this fascinating book about George Starkey (1628-1665), America's first famous scientist. Beginning with Starkey's unusual education in colonial New England, Newman traces out his many interconnected careers—natural philosopher, alchemist, chemist, medical practitioner, economic projector, and creator of the fabulous adept, "Eirenaeus Philalethes." Newman reveals the profound impact Starkey had on the work of Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Samuel Hartlib, and other key thinkers in the realm of early modern science.

The New Alchemists

The New Alchemists PDF Author: Dirk Hanson
Publisher: Avon Books
ISBN: 9780380658541
Category : Microelectronics industry
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description


The Alchemy of Revolution

The Alchemy of Revolution PDF Author: David W. Mulder
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This pioneering study in the history of revolutionary thought presents a reinterpretation of the development of communism among the lower classes during the English Revolution of the 1640s. The subject of the study is the revolutionary ideology of Gerrard Winstanley, the leader of the Diggers, a group of rural laborers who in 1649 founded a communistic colony and challenged conservative revolutionary leaders like Oliver Cromwell. The main principle of reinterpretation is what the author terms «chronological realism», a method that seeks to analyze Winstanley's ideology on its own terms without reference to modern socialism. Primary among the conclusions of this study is that hermeticism, or the theory of alchemy, formed the basis of what was genuinely revolutionary in Digger ideology.

The Secrets of Alchemy

The Secrets of Alchemy PDF Author: Lawrence Principe
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226682951
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Alchemy, the Noble Art, conjures up scenes of mysterious, dimly lit laboratories populated with bearded old men stirring cauldrons. Though the history of alchemy is intricately linked to the history of chemistry, alchemy has nonetheless often been dismissed as the realm of myth and magic, or fraud and pseudoscience. And while its themes and ideas persist in some expected and unexpected places, from the Philosopher's (or Sorcerer's) Stone of Harry Potter to the self-help mantra of transformation, there has not been a serious, accessible, and up-to-date look at the complete history and influence of alchemy until now.

Alchemy Tried in the Fire

Alchemy Tried in the Fire PDF Author: William R. Newman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226577058
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Winner of the 2005 Pfizer Prize from the History of Science Society. What actually took place in the private laboratory of a mid-seventeenth century alchemist? How did he direct his quest after the secrets of Nature? What instruments and theoretical principles did he employ? Using, as their guide, the previously misunderstood interactions between Robert Boyle, widely known as "the father of chemistry," and George Starkey, an alchemist and the most prominent American scientific writer before Benjamin Franklin as their guide, Newman and Principe reveal the hitherto hidden laboratory operations of a famous alchemist and argue that many of the principles and practices characteristic of modern chemistry derive from alchemy. By analyzing Starkey's extraordinary laboratory notebooks, the authors show how this American "chymist" translated the wildly figurative writings of traditional alchemy into quantitative, carefully reasoned laboratory practice—and then encoded his own work in allegorical, secretive treatises under the name of Eirenaeus Philalethes. The intriguing "mystic" Joan Baptista Van Helmont—a favorite of Starkey, Boyle, and even of Lavoisier—emerges from this study as a surprisingly central figure in seventeenth-century "chymistry." A common emphasis on quantification, material production, and analysis/synthesis, the authors argue, illustrates a continuity of goals and practices from late medieval alchemy down to and beyond the Chemical Revolution. For anyone who wants to understand how alchemy was actually practiced during the Scientific Revolution and what it contributed to the development of modern chemistry, Alchemy Tried in the Fire will be a veritable philosopher's stone.

Through Alchemy to Chemistry

Through Alchemy to Chemistry PDF Author: John Read
Publisher: London : G. Bell
ISBN:
Category : Alchemy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description


Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English Literature

Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English Literature PDF Author: Curtis Runstedler
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031266064
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This book explores the different functions and metaphorical concepts of alchemy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English poetry and bridges them together with the exempla tradition in late medieval English literature. Such poetic narratives function as exemplary models which directly address the ambiguity of medieval English alchemical practice. This book examines the foundation of this relationship between alchemical narrative and exemplum in the poetry of Gower and Chaucer in the fourteenth century before exploring its diffusion in lesser-known anonymous poems and recipes in the fifteenth century, namely alchemical dialogues between Morienus and Merlin, Albertus Magnus and the Queen of Elves, and an alchemical version of John Lydgate’s poem The Churl and the Bird. It investigates how this exemplarity can be read as inherent to understanding poetic narratives containing alchemy, as well as enabling the reader to reassess the understanding and expectations of science and narrative within medieval English poetry.