Philadelphia has quietly been sitting on what the Science History Institute says may be the finest collection of alchemical ...

Few intellectual traditions have been as misunderstood, romanticized, and ultimately as consequential as alchemy. Most people dismiss it as a fool’s errand — a pre-scientific fantasy in which deluded ...

In the late 19th century, Southern California attracted misfits, idealists, and entrepreneurs with few ties to anyone or anything. Swamis, spiritualists, and other self-proclaimed religious ...

Fire and Gold: The Art of Alchemy (1450–1850) is a new permanent exhibition in the newly reopened Fisher Gallery at the ...

“Chemistry can’t be viewed as some long, glorious, progressive march to an enlightened future. It came from everyday people, living their lives by their own understanding of the world, and just trying ...

The Chemical Heritage Foundation wants to set the record straight about alchemy. The medieval practice, often perceived as a dark art or pseudoscience, actually helped form the process of scientific ...

Towards the end of Philip Ball’s marvellous book on the history of alchemy he tells the story of pioneering nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford being told in 1901, by his co-worker Frederick Soddy, ...