To: alt.magick
From: Colin Low
Subj: Alchemy (0000.alchemy.cl)

[with reference to opinions as to whether it might be possible to carryout
transmution of mercury into gold]

The chemical behaviour of elements is determined by their electron shells.
Mercury and gold are adjacent on the periodic table, and despite the huge
difference in properties they differ by only one (1) electron, and because
the nucleus is in one is more positive than the other, by a difference in 
energy levels etc. This isn't a *huge* difference - we aren't talking about 
chalk and cheese here. I wouldn't categorically rule out the possibility of a 
doping substance which (in the manner of semiconductor doping) mops up free
electrons or otherwise changes the band structure to give a result which
is chemically *very close* to gold. Not identical, but close enoug to
fool a < 1900 AD chemist. What about high-temperature superconductors - 
nobody thinking about Cooper pairs etc. would have guessed that sticking
a few rare earth metals together would do the job. Mercury is a strange
metal in any case and forms amalgalms like wot I've got in my teeth - there
might just be some weird multi-component amalgalm which is chemically
similar to gold, and dropping a small quantity of "the stone" onto mercury
("projection") sounds a lot like doping to me.

I wager there are physical chemists out there who dream about Fermi levels
and who are going to leave me looking like Yeat's "tattered coat upon
a stick" by the time they finish with my idea. Ah, the Tragedy of Science:
a beautiful elegant Theory ruined by the violence of a crude, ill-bred,
ill-mannered, and thoroughly incorrigible Fact. 

How sad :-(

Colin