Rethinking the Nature of Substance

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  • [Old] Chapter 7: Pictet, Spessard, Baranger, etc [New Ch.10 V0.2.1]

    [Old] Chapter 7: Pictet, Spessard, Baranger, etc [New Ch.10 V0.2.1]

    One of those investigating such matters was the Swiss chemist Amé Pictet. His student, Werner Scherrer, in collaboration with Louis Helfer were inspired by the observations of Louis Pasteur, who had found what they suspected were high levels of argon in yeast.

  • [Old] The story so far…

    [Old] The story so far…

    As I make this sketch it has begun to become apparent which of the ideas form its golden threads and the manner of their appearance. One of those threads is that of the lion of alchemy…

  • [Old] Chapter 6: Hauschka, Herzeele and Baumgartner [New Ch.9 V0.4]

    [Old] Chapter 6: Hauschka, Herzeele and Baumgartner [New Ch.9 V0.4]

    For this chapter I have a lot of homework to do… I need to (re-)read Rudolf Hauschka’s The Nature of Substance (Substanzlehre). Meanwhile an outline of what I recall…

  • [Old] Chapter 5: Radioactivity, Isotopes and the Taming of the Atom[New Ch.13 V0.1.2]

    [Old] Chapter 5: Radioactivity, Isotopes and the Taming of the Atom[New Ch.13 V0.1.2]

    The so-called uncuttable atom proved to hold a deeper secret. Something of that story is given in the second half of the Wikipedia article on Atomic Theory…

  • [Old] Chapter 4: The Hypothetical Atom [New Ch.8 V0.2.2]

    [Old] Chapter 4: The Hypothetical Atom [New Ch.8 V0.2.2]

    The story of the atom is a long and complex one. Their existence was hypothesised largely because they were easy to imagine and even easier to mathematize – as easy as one, two, three! They were generally considered to be very small, solid and like billiard balls in their collisions. Some believed that they possessed…

  • [Old] Chapter 3: Herzeele, Goethe, Preuss [New Ch.9 V0.3]

    [Old] Chapter 3: Herzeele, Goethe, Preuss [New Ch.9 V0.3]

    By the 1840s mainstream scientists appear to have concluded that living organisms obey the same physical and chemical laws as inorganic nature. During the course of the nineteenth century their experiments increasingly supported this belief. However, some noteworthy exceptions existed. Albrecht von Herzeele was one of the most significant for this book.

  • [Old] Chapter 2: The End of Vitalism [New Ch.8 V0.2.1]

    [Old] Chapter 2: The End of Vitalism [New Ch.8 V0.2.1]

    This chapter will be about how the old conception of a life force, with the development of scientific thinking, died. It will probably cover much of the subject matter contained in the Wikipedia article – Vitalism…

  • [Old] Chapter 1: The Origins of Chemistry

    [Old] Chapter 1: The Origins of Chemistry

    The mysteries to be explored in this book largely fall under the subject matter of chemistry. Though I was not particularly talented at school or university in the practical art of chemistry, I have always been fascinated by its magical qualities. There is something deeply mysterious about it….

  • [Old] Foreword: The Story So Far!

    [Old] Foreword: The Story So Far!

    The original book concept was big and ambitious. I tried to simplify it. But each of its parts increasingly appeared to form a single coherent whole. So I am now in the challenging process of bringing all of its parts together in such a way that each part illuminates all of the others, enabling their…

  • Space and Counterspace – by Nick Thomas

    Space and Counterspace – by Nick Thomas

    This was Nick Thomas’s second book to explore his challenging work to develop a mathematical science based on the spiritual indications of Rudolf Steiner. This book was written as more of an introductory work. It is therefore a little easier to follow. I feel that my task is – somehow – to break it down…