Reproducing Alchemical Experiments

Michael Bycroft & Caroline Petit

1st April 2018

Pedagogic Interventions

Executive Summary

The aim of this project is to build historical experiments into teaching and learning at the University of Warwick. Reconstructions of past experiments are an excellent way to learn more about past texts, explore the tacit knowledge involved in science, demonstrate the value of past knowledge, and give students first-hand experience of scientific practice. The project will draw on the expertise of Professor Lawrence Principe (Johns Hopkins University), a world authority on early modern alchemy who has made extensive use of historical experiments in his scholarship.

The anticipated outcomes are to introduce current students to reconstruction as a way of studying past science, and to devise a plan for using these reconstructions in future teaching. The project is part of a wider effort to bring Principe to Warwick for a week in May 2018 as an IAS International Visiting Fellow. We require a small grant (£300) to cover part of the cost of Principe’s travel to Warwick and the full cost of shipping alchemical materials to the UK. This grant will supplement the more substantial funds we expect to obtain from IAS. The visit is directed by the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, with input from faculty in History, Classics, and Chemistry.

Assets