Alchemy

To fulfill some of my non-engineering undergraduate degree requirements, I must take so many history credits, which is fine by me. This semester I'm taking a class called History of Science in America, which by America it means the United States, not North and South America, a distinction that is all to often overlooked. Anyway, the first day or so we spent an extensive amount of time establishing the events that lead up to the real emergence of Western Science, including alchemy. Now alchemy is pretty cool if you ask me, its like chemistry without understanding the principles, which is where I would be at if I was an alchemist. It wasn't a science, more of a guided trial and error that focused on polishing off their recipes. Much of it was based on unproven assumptions and theories which doesn't constitute science. Remember, a lot of people died from the quote unquote wisdom of ancient alchemists. One good example is Huangdi, the first emperor of China who died after drinking a supposed elixir of life tainted with mercury. Alchemy was chaotic and mostly trial and error, which is not good science or science at all.

-Gustav