Can Ancient Alchemy Be Applied to Modern Chemistry?

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pzona
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Hey guys, I need some opinions. I'm doing a project this semester for my chemistry course, and I was thinking about doing it on the contributions of ancient alchemy (or rather the work of alchemists, not just the transformation of lead to gold) to modern chemistry. I have to find a creative way to submit it, and I need to do a ten minute presentation. My main concern is that I'm not sure whether I'll be able to find enough material that's actually relative, i.e. how much of what we know about the contributions of alchemy are in terms that we could apply to modern chemistry without too much speculation as to what they actually meant.

Any thoughts on this? Should I choose a more specific area of the work that the alchemists did? Is there any way at all to make this work, so that it can be related to modern chemistry?
 
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You could think about looking at both the benefits (such as the development of equipment and techniques) as well as the pitfalls of alchemy. That way (and throwing in a bit of a historical introduction), I imagine you might more easily find enough material for a report/10 minute presentation.