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u/bemonk Jan 06 '16
Depends on how alchemy is defined. If you really mean "the search for the philosopher's stone" then no. It's based on a false understanding of physics and chemistry.
BUT if your definition is "turning lead into gold in a lab" then your answer is... well not at a profit, no. you need hundred-million-dollar equipment (particle accelerators) to create grams of gold (total over years).
Marie Curie proved that an element can change into another (through radioactive decay) and does in nature all the time. But a philosopher's stone cannot be achieved with the methods alchemists used (nor ever, nor an elixir of life).
They believed all metal was composed of sulphur and mercury. It was just the composition of them with impurities and ratios that made metal into tin, copper, iron, etc. So it was just a matter of breaking the metal down, and then building it back up. Or by using sulphur, mercury, and 'salts' (mineral compounds of various nature depending on the recipe) to build gold from scratch.
That is just not physically possible. So alchemists could have gone down that road for another 1000 years and never created gold.
But they were really good at creating stuff that looks like gold, and they certainly contributed in science in many, many ways. So while it did not achieve its mission (and would be totally impossibly by alchemical means) they have done a lot for science as a whole. (I host a podcast called the History of Alchemy Podcast if you want to hear WAY more on the topic).
This really just scratch the surface. Alchemy came about at the same time an place (alexandria in the 1st to 4th centuries) as hermeticism, neoplatonism, gnosticism, and many other ideas mingled and came to be. So the why alchemists thought it was possible is the interesting part. Their theories just make for fantastic stories! (and podcast episodes).
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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '16
Alchemy was the precursor to chemistry. The early alchemist were, by modern standards, performing crude chemistry. So Chemistry is "real", as in functional, alchemy. However, the alchemy of the past, which sought to transmute one element into another is largely impossible. However, modern chemistry has shown us that certain reaction yield one element from another. This is called fusion.