Contemporary Advances in Physics, XXII - Transmutation

T is often said that the conversion of the elements into each other has been the dream of the human race for many centuries, nay even for millennia. In special and practical cases, this is probably true; I suppose that from the dawn of history most men possessed of stores of lead or silver have tantalized themselves by dreaming of these being changed to gold. But in the general sense it must be false. One cannot aspire to transform element into element, if one does not know what elements are; and no one had such knowledge centuries ago. Surely many of the chemical reactions which we consider commonplace, many of the compounds old and new which the modern chemist makes in his routine, would have seemed to ancient or to mediaeval no less wonderful than any " t r a n s m u t a t i o n " which he could possibly imagine. Could the Florentine or the Greek have been much more amazed by a change of silver into copper, than by the synthesis of a dye out of tar or coal, the growth of a diamond out of black carbon in a furnace? 628 CONTEMPORARY ADVANCES IN PHYSICS 629 It seems unlikely; for the very special wonderment and admiration, which the first-named change would evoke from a scientist of today were it achieved before him, would arise out of a wisdom denied alike to Greek and Florentine. Only the modern can know how much it would differ, in what particular way it would transcend all that has gone before. For his power of appreciation, this modern onlooker would have two sciences to thank.