Search Results

Darwin and the Beagle: Experimenting with Transmutation, 1831–1836

Niles Eldredge

in Eternal Ephemera: Adaptation and the Origin of Species from the Nineteenth Century Through Punctuated Equilibria and Beyond

This chapter discusses the adventures of Charles Darwin, mainly in South America, during the five-year voyage of the HMS Beagle. The possibility of Darwin engaging with the concept of transmutation ... More

This chapter discusses the adventures of Charles Darwin, mainly in South America, during the five-year voyage of the HMS Beagle. The possibility of Darwin engaging with the concept of transmutation is evident through his Geological Notes, Zoological Notes, Diary, and letters sent to John Stevens Henslow, his Cambridge botany teacher. Darwin was clearly considering transmutational notions as soon as he started his field work on the Beagle, and became a fuly fledged transmutationist by the time he wrote the latter half of the Red Notebook in early 1837. Darwin's earliest analysis of transmutation was generally more Brocchian than Lamarckian; the chapter concludes with Darwin's admission of this fact in a letter addressed to Leonard Jenyns in 1844.Less

Spatiotemporal Extension

Michael Epperson

in Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead

The history of an environmental system revolves around its components, and the conception of these local systems within a larger network comprises the spatiotemporal ... More

The history of an environmental system revolves around its components, and the conception of these local systems within a larger network comprises the spatiotemporal extensiveness of reality and the systems of reality. The valuation of the physical object and the mental schema stresses the rational, grounded, and inherent connections of the objective reality. Both the “physical pole” and the “mental pole” manifest a two-way causality property. Local systems have their own coordinates that define their individual histories, which are expansively intertwined with one another; that is to say, they are spatiotemporally coordinated, with a shared larger historical environment. The speed of transmutation of the local systems in composing a shared group of systems is a function of spatial and temporal relativism. Examples are provided in this section to elaborate the historical ordering of events, restricted durations, and relativity theory. The relations in societies of enduring objects and complex historical environments are made possible, taking into account the approximations and differences in individual histories.Less

Reading Capital I Alchemically

in Alchemical Mercury: A Theory of Ambivalence

This chapter attempts to think about alchemy as the production of gold in the context of a larger discourse on “real” production, “real” money, and “real” consumption, and through Marx in particular. ... More

This chapter attempts to think about alchemy as the production of gold in the context of a larger discourse on “real” production, “real” money, and “real” consumption, and through Marx in particular. Marx posits a transition from the commodity in its plain, homely, bodily form—the base material—to exchange-value, and finally, to the development of the general equivalent, a passage that could be viewed as analogous to transmutation in alchemy. But the notion of a transition does not appear sufficient to warrant an alchemical reading of Capital. We need to seek out what, precisely, is alchemical in the book and read it in the key of alchemy.Less

Death of the Hartlib Circle and Birth of the Royal Society (1658–67)

Michelle DiMeo

in Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle's Sister

Lady Ranelagh remained involved in the Hartlib Circle's correspondence on science until the end of the Commonwealth. Her transmutation history of famed alchemist Dr. Butler gained international ... More

Lady Ranelagh remained involved in the Hartlib Circle's correspondence on science until the end of the Commonwealth. Her transmutation history of famed alchemist Dr. Butler gained international circulation and reached John Winthrop Jr. in the American colonies. She expressed disappointment after Cromwell's death and advocated for educational reform. After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Hartlib Circle dissolved. Though Boyle was a founding fellow of the new Royal Society, Ranelagh did not receive a nomination, in part because she was a woman. However, many other politically motivated members of the Hartlib Circle, such as Benjamin Worsley, John Dury, and Hartlib himself, also did not become fellows. Ranelagh turned her energies towards social improvement by advocating for nonconformists. Her old friend Edward Hyde became Earl of Clarendon under Charles II and enforced the Clarendon Code. Ranelagh worked with William Kiffin to appeal to Clarendon to free twelve Baptists who were imprisoned for dissent. Meanwhile, she also supported her brother Robert as he became more engaged in experimental philosophy. Boyle published some of Ranelagh's work, such as her chemical treatment for rickets using the ens veneris recipe, without using her name. Her life presents a contrast to Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.Less

Chrysopoeia at the Académie and the Palais Royal

Lawrence M. Principe

in The Transmutations of Chymistry: Wilhelm Homberg and the Académie Royale des Sciences

A major early eighteenth-century transformation of chymistry was the disappearance of the search for metallic transmutation—how and why chrysopoeia went into deep decline, and why at this time, has ... More

A major early eighteenth-century transformation of chymistry was the disappearance of the search for metallic transmutation—how and why chrysopoeia went into deep decline, and why at this time, has remained either unclear or obscured by trivial triumphalist responses. Chapter 5 examines the status of transmutational chymistry at the Académie, revealing a striking divide between governmental prohibitions against the pursuit of chrysopoeia, and the continuing transmutational endeavors of several of its prominent members, notably Duclos, Homberg, and Homberg’s protégé Étienne-François Geoffroy. Traditional chrysopoetic—that is, “alchemical”—processes actually stand at the core of Homberg’s mature theory of chymistry. His system draws evidentiary support from his reported transmutation of mercury into gold and provides new theoretical and explanatory foundations for such transmutations. Homberg and Geoffroy divided the work of exploring the composition of the metals during their extensive collaboration; indeed, the collaboration between the two was much more substantial than has been previously recognized. Nevertheless, they sometimes disagreed on the interpretation of specific experimental results, and thus for a time held divergent theoretical explanations of such results. Yet Homberg’s chymical system, which he constantly adjusted in the aftermath of new results and observations, eventually incorporated both his and Geoffroy’s interpretations.Less

What is Quantum Teleportation?

Gershon Kurizki and Goren Gordon

in The Quantum Matrix: Henry Bar's Perilous Struggle for Quantum Coherence

Eve (E) entangles herself to Schred (S) before taking off to a conference. There she barely escapes an assault, and calls Henry. Is he too far away to help? Henry (H) resorts to quantum ... More

Eve (E) entangles herself to Schred (S) before taking off to a conference. There she barely escapes an assault, and calls Henry. Is he too far away to help? Henry (H) resorts to quantum teleportation: a split-second later, H and E, aided by S, have traded places despite being thousands of miles apart! Schematically, the unknown state of H is teleported to E upon measuring the entangled state of E and S and communicating the result to E, who then trades states with H. Since the measured result is communicated at the speed of light, there is no faster-than-light signaling involved. In the distant future, space travel may be partly replaced by large-scale teleportation. Teleportation has intriguing philosophical implications, as it separates the object essence, its quantum information, from its non-essential material substance. The appendix to this chapter presents a quantum teleportation protocol that involves qubits.Less

Intensity: Passionate Becomings of the Divine Complex

Elaine Padilla

in Divine Enjoyment: A Theology of Passion and Exuberance

This chapter unfolds a “reality-in-process,” progressively evolving from the notion of heterogeneity from the previous chapter, into the divine movements of multipassage and transmutation, and ... More

This chapter unfolds a “reality-in-process,” progressively evolving from the notion of heterogeneity from the previous chapter, into the divine movements of multipassage and transmutation, and towards intensity by means of the many seeming contrasting elements of life affecting God. By bringing together concepts such as God’s adventurous newness, as in the work of Roland Faber, ancient memories as posited by Ivonne Gebara, and the chaotic disorders that Catherine Keller sees as latent in new life orders, it conceptualizes forms of passion with the potential for God’s love getting “out of control.” The imagery of the “wound” discussed in dialogue with St. Teresa de Avila becomes polymorphous by more explicitly opening the divine self to an intermingling of multiple selves, a prelude to the manifold divine incarnations according to the many loves and lovers in the chapter that follows.Less

The Devil and Mr. Darwin

Keith Thomson

in Private Doubt, Public Dilemma: Religion and Science since Jefferson and Darwin

This chapter illustrates how from a theological perspective, Darwin's new transmutation theory had various problematic attributes. It denied the Creator's role in the diversification of life, along ... More

This chapter illustrates how from a theological perspective, Darwin's new transmutation theory had various problematic attributes. It denied the Creator's role in the diversification of life, along with the established theory of centers of Creation. Darwin knew that his theory would be extremely unpopular among religious people and scholars for whom religion was serious business. A combination of fear of rejection and hunger for a comprehensive scope for his new worldview caused Darwin to try to appease his religious audience by emphasizing the role of the Almighty. Darwin regretted such decision since he did not believe what he had written, his wordings being a real case of quasi-theology. Darwin conducted a lifelong debate with himself over religion, and he died not absolutely closing off God's existence but dubious about his roles.Less

Radium and the Mutation Theory

Luis A. Campos

in Radium and the Secret of Life

This chapter examines how botanical investigators in the early twentieth century used radium to induce or control biological evolution. Explicitly linking the transmutation of the physical species of ... More

This chapter examines how botanical investigators in the early twentieth century used radium to induce or control biological evolution. Explicitly linking the transmutation of the physical species of radium with the transmutation of biological species, Daniel Trembley MacDougal and Charles Stuart Gager of the New York Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, respectively, independently irradiated plants with radium in an attempt to study the physiological effects induced as well as to provide experimental confirmation of Hugo de Vries’ new “mutation theory.” Metaphors of radium’s powers were put to experimental test at this moment and passed. Even among those plants that happened not to mutate, radium was seen to have “stimulated” and “accelerated” their growth toward an “early senescence.” What would later be taken as a clear sign of mutagenic damage was at this time clear proof of radium’s relevance in the novel early twentieth-century quest to experimentally induce and ultimately control evolution.Less

The Gene Irradiated

Luis A. Campos

in Radium and the Secret of Life

This chapter focuses on Hermann J. Muller’s legendary “artificial transmutation of the gene,” and how he came to his researches through his fascination with radium. Muller argued that mutation and ... More

This chapter focuses on Hermann J. Muller’s legendary “artificial transmutation of the gene,” and how he came to his researches through his fascination with radium. Muller argued that mutation and transmutation were fundamentally connected, and that radium could be useful not only to produce phenotypic and chromosomal mutants in Drosophila but mutations at the most fundamental level of all—the genes. In his shift from radium to X-rays, and from transmission genetics to transmutation genetics, Muller radically recharacterized what had been a pluralistic set of understandings of “mutation” into a fundamentally genic phenomenon. This shift in the meaning and referent of “mutant” and “mutation”—from organism to chromosome to gene—marked not only the beginning of the end for a multi-level nuanced understanding of mutation in favor of a fundamentally genic theory of mutation, but also ended up distancing radium from life in experimental terms. As the gamma rays of radium were increasingly understood by biologists to have the same effect as X-rays, Muller’s focus on the gene as the proper target for mutation and the X-ray as the proper tool—work for which he later won the Nobel Prize—became a sentiment and a practice more widely shared.Less

Transmutations and Disintegrations

Luis A. Campos

in Radium and the Secret of Life

In the final chapter I explore the afterlife and persistence of radioactive residues in Muller’s later work, in that of his contemporaries, and in the larger context of the study of heredity in the ... More

In the final chapter I explore the afterlife and persistence of radioactive residues in Muller’s later work, in that of his contemporaries, and in the larger context of the study of heredity in the 1930s and 1940s, including radiation genetics. As the experimental productivity of this once all-powerful metaphorical and metaphysical association between radium and life slowly decayed to trace residues (and tracers) in a generalized background of radiobiology, the once-pronounced clicking of the Geiger counter of historical narrative slowly merges into noise. In these cases, it becomes increasingly less clear whether there is any such legitimate connection to be drawn to these further transmutations, decays, and disintegrations of what were once powerful associations between radium and life. In recounting such a history, with its countless possible historical residues, Radium and the Secret of Life thereby challenges the very idea of any neat historical narratives of the “life and death” of radium’s role in biology. This form of historical narration suggests what a “hermeneutic of transmutation”—a serious attempt to deploy “radium” as an epistemic tool for the historian as much as it was for the scientist—might look like.Less

The Advent of the Modern Fauna: On the Births and Deaths of Species, 1801–1831

Niles Eldredge

in Eternal Ephemera: Adaptation and the Origin of Species from the Nineteenth Century Through Punctuated Equilibria and Beyond

This chapter talks about the earliest decades of the scientific study of “transmutation,” previously called evolution, in which early evolutionists focused on the search for a natural causal ... More

This chapter talks about the earliest decades of the scientific study of “transmutation,” previously called evolution, in which early evolutionists focused on the search for a natural causal explanation for the origin of species alive today. The two contrasting positions that have dominated evolutionary thought came from two naturalists who based their theories on empirical data drawn from a comparison of fossil mollusks—Jean Baptiste Lamarck and Giambattista Brocchi. The chapter examines the ideas of both Lamarck and Brocchi, most of which were published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, which was founded by Robert Jameson. Jameson was Charles Darwin's teacher at the University of Edinburgh. Darwin's exposure to scientific analysis, natural history, and transmutational thinking continued at Cambridge where he read John Herschel's Preliminary Discourse on Natural Philosophy, a book that influenced him to pursue a scientific career.Less

Evolution: Anthroposophy’s Gifts to the Environmental Movement

Dan McKanan

in Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism

Anthroposophy, with its alchemical emphasis on the balancing of polarities, brings several gifts to the ongoing evolution of the environmental movement. These gifts include a cosmic holism that ... More

Anthroposophy, with its alchemical emphasis on the balancing of polarities, brings several gifts to the ongoing evolution of the environmental movement. These gifts include a cosmic holism that challenges us to attend to ever-widening circles of interconnection; a homeopathic model of social change that invites us to use subtle influences to heal the world; an appropriate anthropocentrism that allows us to experience ourselves as fully at home in the world; and a vision of planetary transmutation that can resist climate change while embracing biological and spiritual evolution.Less

Falconry as a Transmutative Art:: Dante, Frederick II, and Islam

Daniela Boccassini

in Dante and Islam

This paper argues the hypothesis that the condition of the souls in Dante’s Purgatorio and Dante’s own journey of ascent of that transformative mountain lend themselves to be understood in terms of ... More

This paper argues the hypothesis that the condition of the souls in Dante’s Purgatorio and Dante’s own journey of ascent of that transformative mountain lend themselves to be understood in terms of falconry — the art of training a wild raptor to relate to the presence of the falconer and respond to his call. By analyzing the falconry techniques Dante mentions in the Commedia and tracing their origin in the practices that Emperor Frederick II had imported from the Islamic world, we can also better gauge the symbolic value Dante attributes to falconry as an initiatory art of inner transmutation. Seen in the larger perspective of a Mediterranean shared culture, Dante’s understanding of falconry clearly mirrors, on European grounds, the views of some of the towering figures of Islamic medieval poetry and speculative thinking, such as Attar, Ibn Arabi and Rumi. The article finally explores the way in which the concept of inner transmutation, foundational to the art of falconry, contributes to a renewed understanding of Dante’s Purgatory as the locus where Law transmutes into Love — where “amor d’animo” paradoxically learns to respond to the call of “amor naturale”.Less

Transmutations of Quality: Alchemy and Magic

Radcliffe G. Edmonds III

in Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World

This chapter examines alchemy. Alchemy is one of the best-known, yet most misunderstood, forms of arcane magical lore. Alchemy in the ancient Greco-Roman world may be defined as the art or craft of ... More

This chapter examines alchemy. Alchemy is one of the best-known, yet most misunderstood, forms of arcane magical lore. Alchemy in the ancient Greco-Roman world may be defined as the art or craft of the transmutation of the qualities of matter. Such a definition hinges on the theoretical aspect, stressing the importance of considering qualities as transferrable in the abstract, but it encompasses a range of practices, from procedures to change the color of metals to rituals to purify and perfect the soul. Although the accounts that trace the origins of Greek alchemy back to the alien wisdom of the Persian magi and the Egyptian sages are essentially a familiar kind of mythic tale of origin designed to reinforce the authority of the discourse, much of the technical knowledge that supports this lore for the manipulation of physical substances can nevertheless be clearly traced to very ancient metallurgical practices in Mesopotamia and Egypt. As these traditions of knowledge are systematized into arcane lore that derives its authority from the alien wisdom of the Egyptians and the magi, the practices of alchemy shift into the realm of things that can be labeled as magic.Less

Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Species Change

in The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin's Theory

This chapter describes the early discussions on embryological recapitulation and species evolution and Charles Darwin's views regarding them. From ancient time to the beginning of the nineteenth ... More

This chapter describes the early discussions on embryological recapitulation and species evolution and Charles Darwin's views regarding them. From ancient time to the beginning of the nineteenth century, ideas about species change smoldered but failed to ignite the imaginations of most naturalists. Even Aristotle had acknowledged the creation of new kinds of animals through hybridization, and he elaborated the theory that spontaneous generation of insects, worms, and marine invertebrates would later give support to wobbly proposals of species evolution. Although Georges Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, had initially opposed the idea of transmutation, certain breeding experiments and theoretical considerations brought him to the view that the originally created kinds of animals had degenerated into the myriad of species because of the influence of the environment.Less

Artificial Life and the Homunculus

in Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature

This chapter discusses artificial life and the homunculus. The vast literature focusing on alchemy in the debate on art and nature often draws on the spontaneous generation of animals for examples ... More

This chapter discusses artificial life and the homunculus. The vast literature focusing on alchemy in the debate on art and nature often draws on the spontaneous generation of animals for examples that are relevant to alchemical transmutation. Late antique and medieval theories of artificial life can be broken into two main categories: those predicated on the theory of spontaneous generation, primarily as outlined in the biological works of Aristotle; and those based on the cosmogonyc myths of a creator God, like the golem of medieval Judaism. One of the great pillars in the edifice of artificial life was Aristotle's theory of sexual, as opposed to spontaneous, generation. The concept of the marvelous power of male sperm, like the ability of specific types of matter to generate life spontaneously, opened up a vast field of speculation about the possibilities of artificial life.Less

Radioactivity and Nuclear Reactions

Christopher O. Oriakhi

in Chemistry in Quantitative Language: Fundamentals of General Chemistry Calculations

Radioactivity and Nuclear Reactions gives an overview of nuclear chemistry with emphasis on radioactive decay, binding energy and nuclear stability. Modes of radioactive decay are discussed, along ... More

Radioactivity and Nuclear Reactions gives an overview of nuclear chemistry with emphasis on radioactive decay, binding energy and nuclear stability. Modes of radioactive decay are discussed, along with writing and balancing nuclear equations. Decay modes covered include alpha emission, beta emission, gamma emission, positron emission, and electron capture, along with a summary of how each type of decay process affects the parent radioisotope and determines the daughter isotope formed. Nuclear transmutation induced by changes in the nuclei is discussed. The chapter covers the kinetics of radioactive decay including the relationship between the half-lives of radioisotopes and radioisotopic dating. The chapter concludes with a quantitative coverage of the energy of nuclear reactions including the interconversion of mass and energy via the mass defect.Less