Back in Denmark, de Hevesy did a remarkable thing. He reversed the chemistry, precipitated out the gold and then, around January, 1950, sent the raw met

Back in Denmark, de Hevesy did a remarkable thing. He reversed the chemistry, precipitated out the gold and then, around January, 1950, sent the raw metal back to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. He "reversed the chemistry"? Really? That sounds very scientific. Edit: Further research shows that the first reaction is a simple redox[1], which can (probably) be inverted using a galvanic cell[2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_regia#Dissolving_gold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_regia#Dissolving_gold [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_cell