Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Introduction For my I-search I chose to do research on alchemy. The areas of alchemy that I chose to do research on are the history of alchemy, superstitions about alchemy, famous alchemists and alchemy as it is today. Alchemy is mostly used to change one element into another and making undiscovered materials from existing elements. The History of Alchemy Alchemy dates back to around 1400 B.C. in Egypt and Greece. Most of the alchemists in ancient Egypt used alchemy to try to change common metals, such as iron and lead, into noble metals, such as gold. Many people claimed to have created gold out of common metals but now most scientists believe it was only brass. Although most alchemists tried to produce gold, many other alchemists used alchemy for medical purposes. They made many medicines using alchemy but most of the alchemists tried to create panacea, which could improve health greatly. All things were believed to be made of four elements, fire, water, air and earth, and gold was the perfect combination of the four. Also, they believed that all things consisted of male or female properties. Since the alchemist had seen air and wood turn into fire, and water to air they believed that any chang