The Magic of Alchemy

About the Science History Institute

We tell the stories behind the science.

Science is all around us. It shapes who we are and what we do, from the clothes we wear and the phones we carry, to the food we eat and the water we drink. But science has a past—a rich and often surprising past that reveals the origins of ideas and innovations that impact our daily lives.

The Science History Institute collects, preserves, interprets, and shares that past by exploring lesser-known and sometimes overlooked stories from the history of science and technology. And we don’t just mean discoveries made in laboratories. We dive deep into the history of scientific successes and failures, with a focus on expanding knowledge and broadening our understanding of how science and society intersect.

About the class

Alchemists are the wizard-like thinkers who tried to turn lead into gold and who looked for a way to live for centuries. But did you know that alchemy was really science? In this live, interactive class, students will learn the secrets behind the chemistry of the alchemical laboratory, while "transmuting" an ordinary penny into "gold".

To transmute metals, students will need an old penny, salt, vinegar, and a bowl.

Meet your expert instructor, Meagan

Meagan Allen is a historian of medieval science. Her research focuses on the intersection of alchemy and medicine, particularly in the writings of the Franciscan Roger Bacon (d.1292). She completed her PhD at Indiana University; her dissertation “Roger Bacon’s Medical Alchemy: Medieval Pharmacology and the Prolongatio Vitae” examined how Bacon envisioned utilizing alchemical theories and practices to create a panacea that could extend human life by several hundred years. She has held fellowships at the University of Oxford and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany.