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#79723 09/19/02 10:30 AM
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I guess once a universal solvent had caused something to dissolve what would be left would be a solution of the solvent plus whatever had dissolved in it. So it would no longer be the universal solvent it once was.


#79724 09/21/02 01:45 AM
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Thanks for the welcome back. I just recently got DSL, so I'm actually able to get the posts to load within a reasonable time (instead of ten responses in a half hour, for example).

Ali


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see also http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=42958 .

Thanks, Shona, for the definitive reference. :-)

http://homepage.mac.com/jenkins/Asimov/Stories/Story062.html

Edit - Now that I've looked more closely it's a little disappointing to find it isn't the actual text of the story. Nice bibiography, though.

Speaking of actual text, though, I did find this little gem, originally published by Arthur D. Little Company, about "The Turbo-encabulator in Industry." Fans of thiotimoline may find it also to be of interest...
http://www.nelp.navy.mil/turboencabulator.htm

#79726 09/21/02 04:23 PM
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<mumble> ... chopped liver ... <grumble>


#79727 09/21/02 04:30 PM
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Well, a universal solvent would be the ultimate paradox, wouldn't it?...since it would also have to dissolve itself.
Am I missing something here? If "alchemy" is the 'science' of turning (transmuting) lead into gold (or some other base metal into precious metal), wouldn't an "Alkahest" simply be the solvent which effectuated that particular transmutation? In other words, an "Alkahest" would be a solvent only for the metals it acted upon transmutationally. It follows that an "Alkahest" could be collected in a glass beaker, a leather pouch, or, perhaps, even a metal container which happens to be all base metal or all precious metal, but not both.


#79728 09/21/02 04:32 PM
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chopped liver

Sorry, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!


#79729 09/21/02 04:35 PM
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alkahest is not directly related to alchemy per se: first used in med.L. by Paracelsus, and believed to have been arbitrarily invented by him with a form simulating Arabic. Used in the same forms in most of the European languages. so the alkahest is the universal solvent imagined by the alchemists.


#79730 09/21/02 04:40 PM
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"Well, a universal solvent would be the ultimate paradox, wouldn't it?...since it would also
have to dissolve itself. "

A prime proposition of alchemy was "similia similibus solvuntur". As corollary, ipsa ipsem solvitur'.
Don't bother trying to parse my Latin, it is imparsible.


#79731 09/21/02 07:31 PM
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it is imparsible

Nice one, Dr. Bill!


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Speaking of old Isaac: http://world.honda.com/robot/


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