Alchemy, Immortality and Things that Go Boom in the Night
by Tamara McLanahan
Since beginning the feature #DispellingMyths in the group The NuRomantics, I’ve covered a number of subjects including Literature, Authors, Pop Culture, Art, History, Nature and Music. Today I thought to touch on Science and talk about one of the greatest ironies of the ages.
I’d probably want to entitle this segment, Alchemy, Immortality and Things That Go Boom in the Night, a movie that I’m sure Michael Bay would be dying to make.
It was the 9th Century. Oriental mysticism and alchemy were in full swing and in addition to wanting to master alchemical reactions, some decided they wanted mastery over Life itself. Living forever was so romantic and alluring a concept that alchemists through the ages had spent their lives trying to find the secret to immortality. Elixirs, potions, spells and transmutations, they worked relentlessly to find the magic combination that would grant them eternal life.
Emperor Wu Di (156–87 B.C) of the Han Dynasty had commissioned Taoist alchemists years earlier to find the secret with little success for extending life but some other uses were found such as questionable skin treatments. The Book of the Kinship of the Three details these experiments made by the alchemists of the day, written by Wei Boyang.
Around 850 A.D., during the Tang Dynasty, some industrious and ingenious alchemists came up with a recipe they though would finally do the trick. They mixed 15 parts charcoal with 10 parts sulphur and 75 parts saltpeter. Some of you may guess where this is going.
Quite the opposite of immortality, they’d created a mixture which ignited, burning not only their hands and faces, but also the abode where they worked. This formula would not grant everlasting Life but gunpowder did revolutionize warfare virtually overnight. The myth that the Chinese initially used gunpowder exclusively for fireworks persists in many history books to this day. By 904 A.D., they’d weaponized it and the Song military employed it, much to the dismay of the Mongols. One such weapon was known as fei huo, translated, flying fire. Apt, as they consisted of small tubes attached to the shafts of arrows, striking fear and flames into their enemies.
So arguably the most devastating weapon ever invented came not from a quest to find such a thing. Not from an undertaking to invent something to take lives at all, but rather the opposite, the lofty and possibly altruistic goal to make it eternal.
We’re still searching for immortality but the power to take Life? That we have down to an art, or rather, a science. Unfortunately.
So have a pleasant and productive day,
And oh, what myths might we bust today.
Tamara McLanahan
#DispellingMyths #NuRomantics #NRRTG
