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Stephenson:Neal:The System of the World:685:is known as the Philosopher's Stone, or other terms

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The System of the World page for the Philosopher's Stone

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We're given strong hints that the stone is in Enoch Root's possession. Oddly enough, it may explain Enoch's breathe seeming to be metallic to Jack Shaftoe. Among its' alias are Elixer of Life and Medicine of Metals. This may be possibly maybe a nudge-nudge wink wink reference to the Seed in The Diamond Age:      [...]this cause, or principle, or whatever one wants to call it, is known as the Philosopher's Stone, or other terms such as the Philosophic Mercury, the Vital Agent, The Latent or Subtile Spirit, the Secret Fire, the Material Soul of Matter, the Invisible Inhabitant, the Body of Light, the Seed, the Seminal Virtue."      "You are confusing a number of different ideas," said Isaac,[...] Is it also a refrence to Gandalf? Gandalf to the Balrog - The Fellowship of the Ring:      " 'You cannot pass,' he said. The orcs stood still and a silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow. You cannot pass!' " It is highly unlikely that, given that Daniel Waterhouse is a Natural Philosopher, his difficulties in living with and then getting his stone (or "calculus") out into the light of day are coincidental.

Authored entries

Wikipedia: Geber the Sufi Wizard

alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan
alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan,
from a 15th c. European portrait of "Geber", Codici Ashburnhamiani 1166
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, public domain. Jabir Ibn Hayyan , full name Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan Al-Azdi (أبو موسى جابر بن حيان الأزدي), born c. 721 in Tus (Iran), died c. 815 in Kufah (Iraq). Referred as to in Western contexts by the Latinized form of his given name (Jabir), Geber, also known as "the father of Chemistry", because he was the first to scientifically systemize chemistry.

Jabir was born in the year 721 CE as the son of a druggist of the famous Arab-Yemeni tribe of Azd. He later became the pupil of the celebrated Islamic teacher Imam Jaffar. He spent most of his life in Kufa, Iraq. In spite of Jabir's leanings toward mysticism and superstition, he more clearly recognized and proclaimed the importance of experimentation.

"The first essential in chemistry," he declared, "is that you should perform practical work and conduct experiments, for he who performs not practical work nor makes experiments will never attain the least degree of mastery." He made noteworthy advances in both the theory and practice of chemistry.

His books strongly influenced European alchemists and justified their search for the philosopher's stone. He is credited with the invention of many types of now-basic chemical laboratory equipment, and with the discovery and description of many now-commonplace chemical substances and processes — such as the hydrochloric and nitric acids, distillation, and crystallization — that have become the foundation of today's chemistry and chemical engineering. He was a prominent student of Jafar Sadiq.

Jabir Ibn Hayyan and Geber were also pen names of an anonymous 14th century European alchemist, author of the treatise Summa Perfectione and several other books: see Pseudo-Geber.

Contributions to chemistry

Jabir wrote more than one hundred treatises on various subjects, of which 22 are about alchemy. Firmly grounded on experimental observation, his books systematized the knowledge about the fundamental chemical processes of the alchemists — such as crystallization, distillation, calcination, sublimation and evaporation — thus making a great step in the evolution of chemistry from an occultist art to a scientific discipline. In particular, Jabir emphasized that definite quantities of various substances are involved in a chemical reaction, thus anticipating by almost a thousand years the principles of quantitative chemistry and the law of constant proportions.

Jabir is also credited with the invention and development of several chemical instruments that are still used today, such as the alembic, which made distillation easy, safe, and efficient. By distilling various salts together with sulfuric acid, Jabir discovered hydrochloric acid (from salt) and nitric acid (from sodium nitrate|saltpeter). By combining the two, he invented aqua regia, one of the few substances that can dissolve gold. Besides its obvious applications to gold extraction and purification, this discovery would fuel the dreams and despair of alchemists for the next thousand years. He is also credited with the discovery of citric acid (the sour principle of lemons and other unripe fruits), acetic acid (from vinegar), and tartaric acid (from wine-making residues).

Jabir applied his chemical knowledge to the improvement of many manufacturing processes, such as the making of steel and other metals, rust prevention, gold lettering, cloth dyeing and waterproofing, [[Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:6:…bits of slaughtered animals…(Alan Sinder)|leather tanning, and the chemical analysis of pigments and other substances. He developed the use of manganese dioxide in glassmaking, to counteract the green tinge produced by iron — a process that is still used to this day. He noted that boiling wine released a flammable vapor, thus paving the way to Al-Razi's discovery of ethanol.

The seeds of the modern classification of elements into metals and non-metals could be seen in his chemical nomenclature. He proposed three categories: "spirits" which vaporize on heating, like camphor, arsenic and ammonium chloride; "metals", like gold, silver, lead, copper, iron; and "stones" that can be converted into powders.

In the Middle Ages, Jabir's treatises on chemistry were translated into Latin and became standard texts for European alchemists. These include the Kitab al-Kimya (titled "Book of the Composition of Alchemy" in Europe), translated by Robert of Chester (1144); and the Kitab al-Sab'een by Gerard of Cremona (before 1187). Berthelot translated some his books known by the titles "Book of Kingdom", "Book of the Balances," "Book of Eastern Mercury," and it is obvious that he did not use correct titles for Jabir's books. Several technical terms introduced by Jabir, such as alkali, have found their way into various European languages and have become part of scientific vocabulary.

Jabir also made important contributions to medicine, astronomy, and other sciences. Unfortunately, only a few of his books have been edited and published, and fewer still are available in translation.

Contributions to alchemy

Jabir states in his Book of Stones (4:12) that "The purpose is to baffle and lead into error everyone except those whom God loves and provides for!" His works were deliberately written in highly esoteric code, so that only those who had been initiated into his alchemical school could understand them. It is therefore difficult at best for the modern reader to discern which aspects of Jabir's work are to be read as symbols (and what those symbols mean), and what is to be taken literally. Because his works rarely made sense, the term gibberish originally referred to his writings. (Hauck, p. 19)

Jabir's alchemical investigations revolved around the ultimate goal of takwin — the artificial creation of life. Jabir's alchemical investigations were theoretically grounded in an elaborate numerology related to Pythagorean and Neoplatonic systems. The nature and properties of elements was defined through numeric values assigned the Arabic consonants present in their name, ultimately culminating in the number 17.

Wikipedia: Philosopher's Stone

The philosopher's stone, a longtime "Holy Grail" of Western alchemy, is a mythical substance that supposedly could turn inexpensive metals into gold and/or create an elixir that would make humans immortal.

The stone in alchemy

The concept apparently originated from the theories of the 8th century Islamic alchemist Geber. He analyzed each Aristotelian element in terms of four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. Thus, fire was both hot and dry, earth cold and dry, water cold and moist, and air hot and moist. He further theorized that every metal was a combination of these four principles, two of them interior and two exterior.

From this premise, it was reasoned that the transmutation of one metal into another could be effected by the rearrangement of its basic qualities. This change would presumably be mediated by a substance which they called al-iksir in Arabic (from which comes the Western term "elixir"). It was often imagined as a dry powder, made from a mythical stone - the philosopher's stone. The stone was believed to have been composed of a substance called carmot.

Claims and frauds

The concept of a substance that could turn cheap 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 (present-day Czech Republic), 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 metals like 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 a rocambolesque 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.

Modern views

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 Mike'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.

Within the philosophical system of Western alchemy (hermeticism), metal transmutations and the philosopher's stone could also be symbols for inner spiritual transformation of the alchemist. Thus, in religious contexts such as the New Age movements, the concept may be as valid as it ever was.

The stone in fiction

The philosopher's stone has appeared in several works of , such as:

In modern times, Philosopher's Stone has become a slang name for an hallucinogenic mushroom, Psilocybe mexicana, closely related to the more well-known Psilocybe cubensis. See Psilocybe.