5 ms·

A modern alchemical hoax exposed

75 points by benbreen 11y ago

markvdb 11y ago
The article author is speculating about the motive. Let's see... 3 copies "published", one burnt, two saved, of which one in a library, the other in unknown hands... The forger might have been selling the "lost copy" of a "rare" book to a private collector...
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  Is it plausible that they could have recreated an old book that would pass muster? I assumed that the "scans" were just elaborate photoshops.
deepnet 11y ago
The misaligned computer typeface is immediately obvious by the thin perfect lines - quite different to the ideosyncracies of lead cast, press printed type from 1665. Otherwise a very convincing attempt to establish provenance and an unresolved mystery. Medieval alchemy's intertwining of chemical process with self-enlightenment makes for a uniquely weird mix of apparatus, chimera and concealed meaning.
- benbreen 11y ago
  Yep - the computer typeface snuck in there reminded me a bit of Nick Wilding's discovery of a forged Galileo book. There was a two-character chunk of a supposedly letter-press printed word that had blurred in the way things do when you bump a scanner. It turned out it was a forgery created just a decade before, but done with such remarkable expertise that it fooled even the leading Galileo and rare book experts. It's really a fascinating story: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/a-very-rare-book http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/a-very-rare-boo...
smoyer 11y ago
Oh no! - Someone's been faking my pseudo-science. EDIT: I suppose given the history of science, that you could consider alchemy as simply a set of hypotheses that had yet to be proven or disproven. While I think my original comment is funny, the recent news regarding cold fusion shows that I probably shouldn't be quite so closed minded.
- pilsetnieks 11y ago
  This isn't about pseudo-science as much as about historical oddities. The hoax in this case isn't alchemy (which is a hoax in a way, or maybe a delusion,) it's the faking of a book.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    Isn't alchemy the transformation of lead in to gold - that's neither a hoax nor a delusion but instead a performable feat of nuclear physics. Alchemists (like Boyle) almost certainly weren't working to deceive people nor under a delusion, they were attempting to do something that was not then possible and - in part by their efforts - has now become possible for people [to a degree].
    - benbreen 11y ago
      Alchemy is better defined as a broad set of practices and beliefs surrounding what we would now call the fields of pharmacy and chemistry. Alchemists didn't just try to transmute lead into gold, they experimented with magnetism, the action of drugs on mind and body, the transmission and treatment of diseases, the chemistry of the body (urine was a very popular alchemical substance), the translation and interpretation of Greek, Roman and Arabic texts, etc. There was also a strong component of Hermetic and occult magical practice, which blurred into Biblical and Talmudic exegesis as well. Boyle's "The Sceptical Chymist" (1661) was really the beginning of the end for that super expansive approach to alchemy but you're right that he was still working in an early modern alchemical framework (as was Newton).
- fenomas 11y ago
  Alchemy was science of its time, more or less. It wasn't until the 18th century that chemistry and alchemy developed into distinct disciplines.
Joeboy 11y ago
The text is wider than my screen which makes this unreadable without scrolling from left to right. Fortunately the source code is more readable than the page itself. Edit: I don't really like it when people are snarky about fonts and colourschemes of otherwise interesting pages, but I figure it's reasonable to complain if it's actually unreadable.
- dhimes 11y ago
  I just added this to firefox because of this page. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reader/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reader/
  - goda90 11y ago
    Doesn't Firefox have a built in reader mode?
    - heinrich5991 11y ago
      It doesn't display the reader icon in the URL bar when I go to the link.
- J_Darnley 11y ago
  That's because they have two non-breaking spaces between images. I will note that as a future annoyance I will try.
- cptskippy 11y ago
  Most authors either don't know or don't care to make their content accessible and occasionally you have the author knows but is intentionally hostile to the idea. The definition of what is unreadable is very personal and can be a minefield of user preference and also physical impairment. Frequently I'll come across websites linked to form HN that seem to fall into the hostile category. Not that they are intentionally making their content hard to read but rather that they say "browser defaults should be good enough" with motherfuckingwebsite.com in mind. Amusingly these plain looking websites often have very complex markup or css that just makes matters worse. I know that people have said bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com shows how little it takes to make a site readable but honestly it only takes 2 of the 7 rules used there coupled with browser defaults to make your site's content readable. There's some basic and very loose rules any author can follow to make their reader's lives easier. 1 - Paragraphs should be ~60-80 characters wide. Too narrow and your eyes get fatigued, too long and your brain loses focus. 2 - White space, have some. 3 - Line space, 100-150% of font-size. 4 - font-size, 16px/12pt or greater. Accessibility and Usability doesn't have to be onerous or difficult.
ommunist 11y ago
A remarkable investigation! Thank you, it was a pleasure to read.
madaxe_again 11y ago
I just googled a passage from one of his screenshots of the hoax - "animantium genere non sponte genita membrorum" - and lo and behold, here's the page that was amateurishly photoshopped: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrNjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=%22animantium+genere+non+sponte+genita+membrorum%22&source=bl&ots=68N4r-zguC&sig=8Ln1SRY-B5AwNLutvqmNTMUA1D4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT6obtr5XKAhUHVxQKHY66AaEQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=%22animantium%20genere%20non%20sponte%20genita%20membrorum%22&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrNjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zem 11y ago
the modern font in the "A R Codex Veritatem" header that the article highlights really does stand out badly. wonder if it was left in as a deliberate tell.

75 points by benbreen 11y ago

The article author is speculating about the motive. Let's see... 3 copies "published", one burnt, two saved, of which one in a library, the other in unknown hands... The forger might have been selling the "lost copy" of a "rare" book to a private collector...

pavel_lishin 11y ago
Is it plausible that they could have recreated an old book that would pass muster? I assumed that the "scans" were just elaborate photoshops.

deepnet 11y ago

The misaligned computer typeface is immediately obvious by the thin perfect lines - quite different to the ideosyncracies of lead cast, press printed type from 1665. Otherwise a very convincing attempt to establish provenance and an unresolved mystery. Medieval alchemy's intertwining of chemical process with self-enlightenment makes for a uniquely weird mix of apparatus, chimera and concealed meaning.

benbreen 11y ago
Yep - the computer typeface snuck in there reminded me a bit of Nick Wilding's discovery of a forged Galileo book. There was a two-character chunk of a supposedly letter-press printed word that had blurred in the way things do when you bump a scanner. It turned out it was a forgery created just a decade before, but done with such remarkable expertise that it fooled even the leading Galileo and rare book experts. It's really a fascinating story: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/a-very-rare-book http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/a-very-rare-boo...

smoyer 11y ago

Oh no! - Someone's been faking my pseudo-science. EDIT: I suppose given the history of science, that you could consider alchemy as simply a set of hypotheses that had yet to be proven or disproven. While I think my original comment is funny, the recent news regarding cold fusion shows that I probably shouldn't be quite so closed minded.

pilsetnieks 11y ago
This isn't about pseudo-science as much as about historical oddities. The hoax in this case isn't alchemy (which is a hoax in a way, or maybe a delusion,) it's the faking of a book.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Isn't alchemy the transformation of lead in to gold - that's neither a hoax nor a delusion but instead a performable feat of nuclear physics. Alchemists (like Boyle) almost certainly weren't working to deceive people nor under a delusion, they were attempting to do something that was not then possible and - in part by their efforts - has now become possible for people [to a degree].
  - benbreen 11y ago
    Alchemy is better defined as a broad set of practices and beliefs surrounding what we would now call the fields of pharmacy and chemistry. Alchemists didn't just try to transmute lead into gold, they experimented with magnetism, the action of drugs on mind and body, the transmission and treatment of diseases, the chemistry of the body (urine was a very popular alchemical substance), the translation and interpretation of Greek, Roman and Arabic texts, etc. There was also a strong component of Hermetic and occult magical practice, which blurred into Biblical and Talmudic exegesis as well. Boyle's "The Sceptical Chymist" (1661) was really the beginning of the end for that super expansive approach to alchemy but you're right that he was still working in an early modern alchemical framework (as was Newton).
fenomas 11y ago
Alchemy was science of its time, more or less. It wasn't until the 18th century that chemistry and alchemy developed into distinct disciplines.

Joeboy 11y ago

The text is wider than my screen which makes this unreadable without scrolling from left to right. Fortunately the source code is more readable than the page itself. Edit: I don't really like it when people are snarky about fonts and colourschemes of otherwise interesting pages, but I figure it's reasonable to complain if it's actually unreadable.

dhimes 11y ago
I just added this to firefox because of this page. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reader/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reader/
- goda90 11y ago
  Doesn't Firefox have a built in reader mode?
  - heinrich5991 11y ago
    It doesn't display the reader icon in the URL bar when I go to the link.
J_Darnley 11y ago
That's because they have two non-breaking spaces between images. I will note that as a future annoyance I will try.
cptskippy 11y ago
Most authors either don't know or don't care to make their content accessible and occasionally you have the author knows but is intentionally hostile to the idea. The definition of what is unreadable is very personal and can be a minefield of user preference and also physical impairment. Frequently I'll come across websites linked to form HN that seem to fall into the hostile category. Not that they are intentionally making their content hard to read but rather that they say "browser defaults should be good enough" with motherfuckingwebsite.com in mind. Amusingly these plain looking websites often have very complex markup or css that just makes matters worse. I know that people have said bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com shows how little it takes to make a site readable but honestly it only takes 2 of the 7 rules used there coupled with browser defaults to make your site's content readable. There's some basic and very loose rules any author can follow to make their reader's lives easier. 1 - Paragraphs should be ~60-80 characters wide. Too narrow and your eyes get fatigued, too long and your brain loses focus. 2 - White space, have some. 3 - Line space, 100-150% of font-size. 4 - font-size, 16px/12pt or greater. Accessibility and Usability doesn't have to be onerous or difficult.

ommunist 11y ago

A remarkable investigation! Thank you, it was a pleasure to read.

madaxe_again 11y ago

I just googled a passage from one of his screenshots of the hoax - "animantium genere non sponte genita membrorum" - and lo and behold, here's the page that was amateurishly photoshopped: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrNjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=%22animantium+genere+non+sponte+genita+membrorum%22&source=bl&ots=68N4r-zguC&sig=8Ln1SRY-B5AwNLutvqmNTMUA1D4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT6obtr5XKAhUHVxQKHY66AaEQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=%22animantium%20genere%20non%20sponte%20genita%20membrorum%22&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrNjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

zem 11y ago

the modern font in the "A R Codex Veritatem" header that the article highlights really does stand out badly. wonder if it was left in as a deliberate tell.