Document Type

Presentation

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Utah State University Faculty Honor Lectures

Publisher

The Faculty Association, Utah State University

Publication Date

1-5-1967

Abstract

Alchemists, the forerunners of chemists, for more than a millennium sought the "Philosopher's Stone"-the transmuting agent that could change imperfect base metals such as lead and tin to the noble metals, gold and silver, and also serve as the Elixir of Life to heal the infirmities of man and prolong his existence on earth.

Where alchemy failed, chemistry, in little more than a century, has succeeded in finding the "Philosopher's Stone," for it is now not only possible to transmute one metal into another and heal many of man's infirmities, but scarcely a facet of man's life has not been influenced through chemical research and industry.

Alchemists failed because they sought to solve the problem directly. Chemists succeeded because they first sought to understand the basic principles of nature and directed their efforts to the fundamentals. Industrial applications were the logical and natural outgrowth of these fundamental discoveries.

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on August 16, 2011.

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