Isaac Newton's missing manuscript has been found in the hiding places of the Royal Society Library of London. On 22 sheets of the manuscript, the greatest physicist appears before us in an unusual incarnation - an alchemist.
It doesn't look like a rally. The Royal Society is a very serious organization. It is not only the leading scientific center and the oldest scientific society in Great Britain (since 1660), but also the national academy of sciences. Isaac Newton was a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1672, and since 1703 - its President. Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727) was one of the greatest geniuses of science: physicist, mathematician, mechanic, astronomer and philosopher.
He is considered the founder of modern science and the creator of classical mechanics. In his famous works "Mathematical principles of natural philosophy" (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1687) and "Optics" (1704) Newton outlined the law of universal gravitation, the theory of motion of celestial bodies, three laws of classical mechanics and the corpuscular theory of light. Independently of Leibniz, the Englishman gave the foundations of differential and integral calculus. In addition, Newton was director of the Mint and established the minting in England.
Simultaneously, Newton was engaged not only in mathematical equations, but also in alchemy. For example, the chronology of the ancient kingdoms. The theological treatises of the scientist (mostly unpublished) are devoted to the interpretation of biblical prophecy.
The most obscure of the sciences, most likely, originated in Ancient Egypt, where secret (hermetic) knowledge was passed down from generation to generation of initiated priests. (However, scholars such as Rene Allo and Mircea Eliade link the origins of alchemy to the traditional brotherhoods of blacksmiths, who were engaged in the processing of metals among primitive peoples).
According to popular belief, the root of the word "alchemy" is of ancient Egyptian origin khem, which means Black Country - from the dark color of Nile silt. The Crusaders brought to the West treatises of Arab thinkers: hence the common Arabic prefix - al (as well as in other words: algebra, alcohol). The first alchemical treatises that have come down to us are devoted to the art of making gold. Alchemical theories were expressed by Galen and Avicenna.
The invention of alchemy was attributed to the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus, Hermes the Thrice-Greatest, as the learned Greeks from Alexandria called him. He was represented either by the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom Thoth (the Hellenes identified him with Hermes), or by a man who lived 142 years (1399 - 1257 BC); his grave is supposedly preserved in the vicinity of El Amarna, the capital of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten (wife of the famous Nefertiti). Arab alchemists saw in Hermes Trismegist the ancient prophet Idris, who taught people to build cities.
Despite the fact that as early as the 13th and 14th centuries, many pundits condemned alchemy and alchemists, another large part tried to boil the "philosophical egg" and diligently fanned the fire in their atanor (alchemical furnace). Dante placed the alchemist in the tenth ditch of the eighth circle of Hell, Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales and Sebastian Brunt in The Ship of Fools condemned pseudo-scholarly pursuits that combine stupidity and fraud. The objects of ridicule were the money-hungry but beggar gold miners.
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Real alchemists, who bore the honorary title of adepts, contemptuously called this fraternity false alchemists and prompters - after the name of the blowing bellows, with which they, like simple blacksmiths, fanned the fire in the furnace more strongly. Poor fellows awaited not only condemnation of public opinion, but also ruin, poverty, and some flew into the air with the stove or writhed in convulsions, inhaling poisonous fumes.
Roger Bacon, who was not at all meager in reason, wrote about the hermetic art: “Alchemy is the science of how to prepare a certain composition, or an elixir, which, if added to base metals, will turn them into perfect metals … This is the science of how things arose from elements, and about all inanimate things."
The first alchemical treatise known to us, richly decorated with miniatures, "Rising Dawn" (Aurora consurgens) dates back to 1480. Its author is unknown. In general, there are many names in the glorious galaxy of European alchemists: Alan of Lille, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Raymond Llull, Nicolas Flamel, Basil Valentine, Isaac Holland, the legendary Count Saint Germain and the most famous of the famous physician-alchemist Paracelsus. And also Isaac Newton.
Newton's manuscript was considered lost without a trace after an unknown person bought it at Sotheby's in 1936 for 15 pounds. The staff of the Royal Society, one might say, accidentally found Newton's 22-page manuscript while cataloging library collections.
Most of the text is occupied by Newton's notes on the work of other alchemists. One page, however, has drawn particular attention from scholars. In several sentences, Newton expresses his own ideas about a secret science, which, among other things, was engaged in the transformation of base metals (for example, lead) into gold or, at worst, into silver, as well as the creation of artificial living things, for example, basilisks and homunculi.
Newton's newfound manuscript nonetheless presents a problem because of the cryptographic language. “The alchemists used symbolic, encrypted language to communicate with each other,” said Tim Watson, a spokesman for the Royal Society. "At the same time, they were interested in keeping the secret so that none of the uninitiated could repeat these experiments."
It is also important that the manufacture of silver and gold according to the law of King Henry IV of 1404 was considered a crime. Is it not from here that the expression “speak in a bird's language” - that is, something abstruse and incomprehensible - came from?
Despite the fact that Newton wrote his notes not in Latin, but in English, they are still incomprehensible, like a Chinese letter. Because alchemists loved to explain "the dark through the even darker, the unknown through the even more unknown" (obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius).
Perhaps scientists will be able to get closer to deciphering the text of the great scientist, especially after the Royal Society made it public.
British historians are delighted with the manuscript. "This is a tremendously valuable find for both the student of Newton's legacy and the historian of science in general," says John Young of Imperial College London. "It shows what works on alchemy Newton read, as well as what alchemical theories he investigated in the last decades of the seventeenth century."
Newton was not the only scientist of his time who believed that he could perform the process of the Great Work, as alchemy is sometimes called. The natural scientist Robert Boyle, the founder of modern physics and chemistry, regularly exchanged thoughts about alchemy with Newton.
German alchemist Johann Friedrich Boettger achieved impressive success, who, out of fear of the almighty Elector of Saxony August II the Strong, created the magnificent and famous Meissen porcelain. In 1710, a manufactory was opened in Meissen, which began to generate income quite comparable to that of which the seekers of the philosopher's stone dreamed.
“Newton spent much of his time doing alchemical methods,” says Watson. "The manuscript found now allows us to take a fresh look at this part of his life and confirm previous hypotheses."