Posted by: @cathoderay

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The modellers are determined to settle this question using models, in much the same way that alchemists sought to turn base metals into gold by using dark magic, but my own inclination is that the only satisfactory answer will be an empirical one, even if such an approach has the problem that no two days are the same, in other words, I can't do a controlled experiment, instead I have to rely on observations.

I was browsing older threads and found this, seeing as it is the quite holiday time between holidays and it is horribly wet and windy out there, I have nothing better to do.

Basically alchemists did not use dark magic.  There's no evidence they did or tried to; surviving texts don't say that.  The main accusation of using demons came from a Spanish  Inquisitor in the late 14th century, but even at the time they thought he was a bit of an extremist. 

The aim usually was to use knowledge of natural processes to change the constituents of the metals in question in order to make them into gold or silver.  Of course one of the reasons alchemy never quite made it as a serious university topic was that people greatly disagreed on whether it was possible or not in the first place and there were arguments for and against it.  Ultimately it failed to do what was promised so was gradually abandoned in favour of it's offspring, chemistry. 

Posted by: @guthrie

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Posted by: @cathoderay

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The modellers are determined to settle this question using models, in much the same way that alchemists sought to turn base metals into gold by using dark magic, but my own inclination is that the only satisfactory answer will be an empirical one, even if such an approach has the problem that no two days are the same, in other words, I can't do a controlled experiment, instead I have to rely on observations.

I was browsing older threads and found this, seeing as it is the quite holiday time between holidays and it is horribly wet and windy out there, I have nothing better to do.

Basically alchemists did not use dark magic.  There's no evidence they did or tried to; surviving texts don't say that.  The main accusation of using demons came from a Spanish  Inquisitor in the late 14th century, but even at the time they thought he was a bit of an extremist. 

The aim usually was to use knowledge of natural processes to change the constituents of the metals in question in order to make them into gold or silver.  Of course one of the reasons alchemy never quite made it as a serious university topic was that people greatly disagreed on whether it was possible or not in the first place and there were arguments for and against it.  Ultimately it failed to do what was promised so was gradually abandoned in favour of it's offspring, chemistry. 

 

You are indeed correct, while Alchemy may have received a bad press, probably because it was feared by the then church hierarchy, Chemistry is now fully accepted by modern society.

The main problem with using any form of simulation is first identifying the main variables which affect the process, and then measuring them with the required precision for the end results to be accurate and meaningful.

I believe that the first objective has been achieved, although I do keep adding more capability to the spreadsheet as more knowledge becomes available. The second part of the requirement is gradually improving, but does need more data from different sources.