Re: Alchemists

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
In article <1il29k3.jrjqi1gksafuN%green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Catja Pafort <green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sea Wasp wrote:

In Europe, again they'd look like regular people, and be engaged in researching things like how to turn lead into gold, the secrets of the
difference between life and nonlife, etc., using techniques that eventually became the foundation of what we call chemistry today.
What gets me is _why lead_? Lead was a useful material, it was not
exactly overabundant, it was already needed for a great number of
applications, and it takes a considerable effort to get it out of the
ground. (Admittedly, you usually get it along with silver, so it's
lucrative.)

Well, for one thing, it was as heavy as gold, modulo small
differences in atomic weights that I'm not gonna get up to look
up right now*,

Memory being what it is, I did have a quick pick to refresh and discovered something surprising. Althought the atomic numbers are close (in fact lead has just three more protons, 82, versus 79 for gold atoms), it turns out it's only just more than half the density of pure gold! I thought they'd be much closer. Of course, pure gold would have been quite rare, so presumably the impure stuff was a little closer in weight.

so perhaps they thought it would be an easier
task. Not only that, there was lead in various places for the
taking --- loot it out of Roman roads, if all else failed --- and
unlike gold, lead didn't get squirreled away into the medieval
equivalents of Fort Knox. You could *get* some and it didn't
cost as much.

*Even though I have the entire periodic table displayed in Size
Large on my shower curtain. :)

Okay, you win. You just do.
.

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