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IT LOOKS a curiously clumsy anachronism, set among the modern Pyrex glass and fume cupboards. Surely this chemistry lab at Indiana University in Bloomington shouldn鈥檛 contain a crude furnace constructed from bricks and mortar. It gets worse: look past the furnace and you鈥檒l see a couple of people hunched in a corner, poring over what appear to be the scrawlings of a madman. What鈥檚 going on 鈥� is this the rebirth of alchemy?

Well, yes, in a way it is. The writings, set out in a laboratory notebook, describe an alchemical experiment that chemists William Newman and Catherine Reck are hoping to carry out. But Newman and Reck are perfectly sane, and so was the man who wrote the scrawls they are trying to decipher. In fact he was arguably the most famous scientist of all time, Sir Isaac Newton.

The last magician

Historians of science have always assumed that Newton鈥檚 interest in alchemy was motivated by abstract philosophical or religious objectives, and something of a stain on his scientific reputation. John Maynard Keynes, who bought many of Newton鈥檚 manuscripts, declared in 1946 that 鈥淣ewton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians鈥�. The Indiana researchers think otherwise. They say that Newton was simply trying to do chemistry 鈥� or as they prefer to call it, 鈥渃hymistry鈥�, a transitional science between the alchemy of the Middle Ages and the chemistry of the 18th-century Age of Reason.

Contrary to what most people now believe, Newman is convinced that Newton鈥檚 chymical enthusiasms were quite normal for scientists of his time, and that his primary concern was simply to uncover the chemical laws of nature. The notebooks certainly show that Newton made no distinctions between alchemy and what we call science. The very same book in which he recorded his epoch-making experiment of reconstituting white light from its spectral components is filled with recipes culled from alchemical sources. 鈥淎longside sober explanations of optical and physical phenomena such as freezing and boiling,鈥� Newman says, 鈥渨e find 鈥楴eptune鈥檚 Trident鈥�, 鈥楳ercury鈥檚 Caducean Rod鈥� and the 鈥楪reen Lion鈥�, all symbolising alchemical substances.鈥�

So is it possible that Newton鈥檚 alchemical experiments led to scientific discoveries as profound as his more familiar works? The first step in answering that question is to decipher the notebooks. It is no easy task: Newton didn鈥檛 always record his chymical experiments in the most transparent way. Alchemists were notorious for veiling their writings in impenetrable jargon, and Newton made matters even worse by inventing symbols and systems of his own. That is part of the reason why, despite Newton鈥檚 reputation, many of his manuscripts have still not been properly edited and interpreted. 鈥淭hey are in a state of considerable disorder,鈥� Newman says.

Even where the text can be deciphered this only gets you so far. 鈥淎lthough we can make educated guesses about his chymical work from reading,鈥� Newman says, 鈥渢here are often too many variables in chemical research to make it possible to predict an exact outcome from Newton鈥檚 notes.鈥� So Newman and his colleagues set out to repeat the experiments Newton described 鈥� using exactly the same conditions.

Newman insists that to do this it is necessary first to reproduce the apparatus Newton would have worked with. So the researchers have, for starters, reconstructed Newton鈥檚 furnace. 鈥淢odern electrical furnaces don鈥檛 produce the complex mix of gases that resulted from charcoal-burning furnaces, which can generate [chemically] reducing atmospheres,鈥� Newman observes.

Following Newton鈥檚 recipes in every detail, they have produced a pellet of the substance Newton called the 鈥渘et鈥�. It is a purplish alloy of copper and antimony with a dimpled, reticulated surface from which it takes its name. According to his notebooks, Newton learned of it from the Bermudan-born, Harvard-educated alchemist George Starkey, who proposed that the synthesis of the net was, like many other alchemical processes, encoded in a story in Greek mythology.

Metal trees

The researchers have also used Newton鈥檚 notebooks to recreate the tree-like metal structures that may have influenced his manuscript Of Nature鈥檚 Obvious Laws and Processes in Vegetation Some of the trees grow as precipitates of metal salts in a gel of sodium silicate, which chymists in the 17th century called oil of sand; similar branching structures are familiar today in so-called chemical gardens. To Newton and his contemporaries, their organic appearance confirmed the old alchemical idea that metals have a kind of life and can 鈥渧egetate鈥�.

Another of Newman鈥檚 experiments has replicated Newton鈥檚 alchemical synthesis of a crystalline alloy of antimony and iron called the Star Regulus, which forms as radiating, star-like crystalline shards. 鈥淭hese replications can teach us about the actual successes and failures that Newton experienced,鈥� Newman says.

It鈥檚 a lot of hard work, but Newman reckons it is worth the effort. Unravelling the identity of Newton鈥檚 chemical materials and lab methods will eventually help to illuminate the relationship between his experiments and the literature of chrysopoeia 鈥� the transmutation of metals into gold 鈥� that inspired him. Newman has already found from the notebooks that, while Newton learned the alchemical term 鈥淭he Green Lion鈥� from Starkey, he used it to mean a different substance from Starkey鈥檚 antimony and its ores. 鈥淯ntil we understand the meaning of such cryptic terms in Newton鈥檚 notebooks, we will not completely understand his experimentation in alchemy, nor what his ultimate goals were,鈥� Newman says. 鈥淢odern laboratory replication of Newton鈥檚 experiments will help us eventually to crack this enigma.鈥�

Will these investigations reveal Newton to have been as innovative in chemistry as he was in physics, as some historians claim? With many of the experiments in his notebooks yet to be repeated, the jury is still out on that question, but science historian Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore doubts it. 鈥淚 frankly don鈥檛 think that Newton made significant contributions to chemistry,鈥� Principe says. 鈥淢uch of the material in his chymical manuscripts was dependent on work already known or performed on the Continent.鈥�

Even if Newton is shown to have been something of a plodder in chemistry, that will still give us a more complete picture of a man who has since been all but deified. Newman鈥檚 studies mean we now know far more about the context in which Newton did research and wrote his treatises, says Rob Iliffe, a science historian and Newton scholar at Imperial College London. He may not, after all, have been a genius who plucked ideas out of thin air, Iliffe says. 鈥淏ut on the other hand we have a more detailed and subtle understanding of exactly where his brilliance and creativity lay.鈥�