I am at present deciphering Isaac Newton's chymical laboratory notebooks and manuscripts, the subject of a forthcoming BBC/NOVA documentary, much of which was filmed at IU. Newton spent some thirty years working on chymistry, and yet the goals of his project and their relationship to his physics and religion remain obscure. One thing is clear, however. Newton based his research heavily on the work of "Eirenaeus Philalethes" or George Starkey, about whom I have written extensively. Hence my background in Starkey's work gives me an important Ariadne's thread into the labyrinth of Newton's alchemy, and one that I am busily exploiting. At the same time, Newton left clear directions for making chymical furnaces and other apparatus, as well as processes for the star regulus of antimony, a copper-antimony alloy called "the net," and other products of the laboratory. He also wrote a manuscript discussing metallic "vegetation," the formation of dendrites from salts and metals. To Newton, the fact that metals could be made to grow in a flask was a sign that they possessed a sort of life, and could therefore be made to ferment, putrefy, and ultimately multiply.
With the aid of Cathrine Reck and the IU Chemistry Department, I am presently replicating a number of these processes in order to determine the precise nature of Newton's research. With the help of John Goodheart and Tim Mather at the IU Pottery Studio, I've also built a working replica of one of Newton's laboratory furnaces. I am also involved in "The Newton Project," an initiative originating at Imperial College London to prepare a digital edition of Newton's alchemical and theological manuscripts.
Newton was fascinated by "the net," the beautiful purple alloy that he made of antimony regulus and copper. Upon close inspection, one can see that the alloy has a surface made up of small crystals separated by interstices. Newton's predecessor and source, "Eirenaeus Philalethes" - the American alchemist George Starkey - first discovered this alloy and named it "the Net," on the basis of its physical appearance. Like Newton, Starkey believed that most of ancient Greco-Roman mythology was really encoded alchemy. The story that Vulcan, the husband of Venus, caught Venus and Mars in bed, in flagrante delictu, became for him (and for Newton), a recipe for "the Net." According to the myth, Vulcan made a fine metallic net and hung the two lovers from the ceiling for all the Olympians to see. Now in alchemy, "Venus" usually means "copper," "Mars" means "iron," and "Vulcan" means "fire." Hence "Venus" referred to the copper in the alloy, and "Vulcan" to the intense heat used in making it. Since the antimony regulus that is added to the copper is itself reduced from stibnite (antimony sulfide) by the addition of iron, "Mars" (iron) was thought to be present in "the Net" as well. Voila - the whole myth becomes a recipe for "the Net."
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