Wie man mit dem Feuer philosophiert

When we think of chemistry, we picture scientists in white lab coats working in laboratories with Erlenmeyer flasks and pure chemicals over Bunsen burners. Or we think of complicated formulas that we didn’t understand back in school. Who knows that today’s lab-coat chemistry has a wonderful, wildly adventurous history that stretches back into the forests of the Amazon, into the monasteries and castles of Europe! Here, centuries ago, substances were transformed over the fire: the bark of vines into deadly poison, saltpeter into gunpowder, large amounts of children's urine into tiny amounts of phosphorus. Generations of creative alchemists invested the energy of their lives in vain attempts to make gold and instead discovered porcelain and much more, without which our world today would be unimaginable. Jens Soentgen, a natural scientist and philosopher, travels from hearth to hearth, enthusiastically sharing the crazy and exciting stories of substances, alchemists, and chemists. He does not shy away from the often fatal intertwining of chemistry and power. In the second part of the book, there are many new experiments that the fearless can use to ignite their own passion for the transformation of substances.