Recipe for Insanity

the shock of the new(TON): Did one of our greatest minds try to cook up illegal gold?
: courtesy of university of pennsylvania

Discovered in Old City Newton's alchemy notes rewrite the scientist's legend.

by Bruce Schimmel

Professor Lawrence M. Principe was browsing through a sheaf of science experiments dating from the 17th century when he found a single scrap of paper that he says is tantamount to a handwritten confession from one of the world's greatest scientists.

Principe, a Johns Hopkins University professor of the history of alchemy and chemistry, immediately recognized the handwriting as that of Sir Isaac Newton, and the scrap paper was an experiment in alchemy. Here was Newton's own secret chemical recipe, calling for copious amounts of mercury to change silver into gold.

Here was the missing piece of evidence, says Principe, that also linked Newton's obsession with alchemy with the scientist's well-documented bout of insanity. Principe calls it "a coincidence bordering on the miraculous," because he believes that this incriminating evidence may, at one time, have been overlooked intentionally.

Principe is a tweedy, soft-spoken young man. But his green eyes blaze and he giggles with delight as he describes the full impact of what he found last year in the library of Philadelphia's Chemical Heritage Foundation in Old City. The recovered alchemical recipe, he says, reveals a side of Newton that previous generations may have tried to hide.

"Newton was a real son of a bitch," says Principe. "He was secretive and calculating, a liar and a thief."

Newton is, of course, best known by generations of schoolchildren for getting beaned by an apple and creating the foundation of classical physics. Celebrated also as an inventor of calculus, Newton charted the heavens with a telescope of his own making. Now, says Principe, we know for sure that Newton also secretly practiced alchemy in his garden shed in Cambridge, England.

Newton practiced secretly because in 17th-century England it was illegal to try to transmute substances into gold. The celebrated scientist publically denied doing anything alchemical, but the history professor says that Newton was just bluffing. In fact, Newton wanted this very recipe so much, says Principe, that he arranged to have it stolen.

Principe says Newton purloined the recipe from Sir Robert Boyle — author of Boyle's Law — even though he proclaimed he wasn't interested. But as soon as Boyle died in 1691, Newton arranged for John Locke — yes, that John Locke — to root through the dead man's papers in search of his recipe for gold.

This discovery, says Principe, might also explain why Newton went temporarily insane. Principe picks up the 1691 manuscript and reads out instructions that call for heating and cooling mercury, over and over. Within a year, says Principe, with all the mercury Newton had inadvertently inhaled, the renowned scientist was publicly declared to have a "derangement of the intellect." After abandoning this experiment, he says, Newton apparently regained his sanity.

But what's most remarkable from an historical perspective, says Principe, is how this recovered manuscript had gotten lost.

By the mid-19th century, say Principe, a huge inventory of Newton manuscripts came to be housed at Cambridge University. The university eventually purchased notes that documented Newton's more legitimate scientific experiments, but refused to buy papers pertaining to his alchemical pursuits. Eventually, says Principe, this recipe fell into private hands, where it lay buried in a binder until last year.

"Newton's alchemy was an embarrassment to his memory," says Principe. "Cambridge [in the 19th century] was interested in creating a model of Newton: not the real person, but the image they wanted. They turned [Newton's alchemical] papers down," the historian believes, "because Cambridge didn't want them to be seen again."

And until Larry Principe happened to open the right unmarked binder last year in Old City, some startling truths about Sir Isaac Newton lay hidden for more than 300 years.

Newton's recipe is not on display, but those interested in the manuscript are invited to contact the Chemical Heritage Foundation to arrange a private viewing.