WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:41 — 29.6MB)
Host Tom Healy welcomes Bill Newman, chairman of Indiana University’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science. Newman has gained international acclaim for his research and writings about the history of alchemy and how it influenced the founders of modern science, including Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. Alchemy has been maligned and misunderstood for centuries. Is it an art? A primitive precursor of chemistry? A religious practice? A template for psychological development? Or a scam promulgated on the rich and gullible by rogues, mountebanks and charlatans? Bill Newman is uniquely qualified to guide us through the muddle. He’s written several books about the role of alchemy in the history of science. Newman heads a team based at IU who are transcribing the thousands of pages of Sir Isaac Newton’s alchemical writings and posting them to the Web.
