So a bit of background. in the spiritual practice of alchemy, the philosopher's stone was a mythical element that when added to lead, would transmute it into gold, but would also transmute the alchemist into a supposedly perfect being.
I've long used this to make a philosophical point, because as we know today, gold is actually less dense than lead by atomic weight, so I would argue, sometimes it's not what we add, but what we remove that makes the difference.
Today, however, I went on a wild hair, wondering what if we took this advice literally, what might come up?
So I started by subtracting the atomic weight of gold from the atomic weight of lead, and searched for that, landing initially at beryllium, but beryllium is barely present in most people's bodys, so I went for a different angle and tried to see what elements in the human body have a total atomic weight of 9, and what came up was florine.
If you've ever come across arguments about fluoridation of drinking water, you're probably at least passingly familiar with sodium floride and it's use in drinking water. I could speculate further, but honestly, I want to see where this conversation heads.
Did you ever see the movie "Evolution" with David Duchovny? There's a scene where they use the periodic table to figure out how to kill the aliens. This reminds me of that
Why didn't that ever occur to Mulder?
To busy porking Scully
Weirdest product placement for anti dandruff shampoo I've ever seen.
It really is
Donkeylips saving the day with selenium!!
one of my favorite movies, actually.
...Also a better ghostbusters remake than GB2016...
Nah, its fine. Fun conversations solidify the community.
Some other elements are in Chinese the concept of "cultivation" which is internal alchemy to train your mind and body to surpass human limits. As well as the pineal gland which creates melatonin and other hormones within the brain.
Some other interesting areas I would suggest looking into are "astral projection", near death experiences, and past life hypnosis. All of them have very interesting information, if you believe the data derived from them or not.
fiance's eclectic pagan, so I've looked at some of that, but thank you all the same =)
I know next to nothing about chemistry, but shouldn't you look at the number of protons rather than the atomic weight? That determines what element it is. Atomic weight is the average weight of the various isotopes.
Lead has 82 protons, while gold has 79. If you managed to subtract 3 protons (lithium) from lead, you'd get gold.
Sure, but it would be gold 203. The alchemist transmuting a kilogram of lead into gold in such a way would never have to worry about bacterial and viral disease ever again, as ²⁰³Au has a halflife of ~60s, meaning he would be standing next to something giving more than 2.4*10^22 disintegrations per second. Each disintegration gives off on the order of magnitude of 1 MeV, yielding a total power of around 3 GW (or 1 ton TNT/s) for the moment the experimental setup stays together. In fact, such an alchemist would never have to worry about anything ever again.
You really can't remove protons from a nucleus. You can add them with a particle accelerator, which is how we get new elements, but going backwards requires an enormous energy release all at once.
honestly, it was just the first place my head went.
...3 is definitely a number that comes up a lot in religious/occult writings though...🤔
could just be related to pi, though, who knows?
It's interesting that stars use fusion to eventually crap out at lead, while radioactive materials all eventually decay down to lead. (iirc). Lead itself is pretty special, even if humans don't think it is, apparently.
It's just an inevitable result of the strong nuclear force and quantum mechanics. It's "special" because it is the largest an atomic nucleus can be while remaining stable. That's why everything heavier than lead is radioactive.
Well, gold is only "special" because it doesn't tarnish like silver or rust like iron (ie, it doesn't react with oxygen.) Just a similar aspect of its atomic nature.
This is how the Nephandi work in Mage. Each of the 9 spheres of reality (time, matter, spirit, space, etc) mages use them by molding and creating them with will. The naphandi do the opposite, they do magic by destroying their sphere.
So a mage would teleport by connecting the two Spaces that were distant, and a Nephandi would rip the concept of the distance between them to shreds.
Vitriol is an important substance used in the process. It's also what you expose people to, in order to either destroy them or provoke them to overcome the relentless antagonism and become much stronger versions of themselves.
Check out "the green lion eating the Sun" if you're interested in learning more.
Could you explain this a bit more?
Lead: 82 protons, 82 electrons, 125 neutrons
Gold: 79 protons, 79 electrons,. 118 neutrons
There is "more" to an atom of lead than there is gold. So to transmute it you would be removing particles rather than adding them.
Obviously the philosopher's stone is antimatter /s
Typo. The first word should be gold, not lead.
yep.
...dammit, the typo demon strikes again. fixed
I love shit like this, we should be looking to alchemy to turn ourselves into a race of super homunculi.
honestly, I just thought it was interesting.
Don't be nice to the mods , xers head is big enough already.
eh, I try to respect the rules as much as I can, lol
giggity
I hate when people use unofficial acronyms to describe a game or anime.
I'm a huge full metal alchemist fan but I had to google what FMA could be because it could be anything.
It's just lazy retard shit and it grinds my gears.
sorry, lol. i was kinda in a hurry ^_^;