VMs: Re: Alchemy in Czechia

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Philip Neal <philipneal_vms@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > Thus, the generous hand of the Czech monarch
> > financed serious students, as
> > well as imposters who tried to take full advantage
> > of their patronage.  In
> > Rudolfine Prague evolved the well-known alchemists
> > Edward Kelley and John
> > Dee, and the famous astronomers Tycho Brahe and
> > Johannes Kepler -- who
> > precisely described the laws governing the
planets'
> > orbits.
> 
> It was the blue sky research of its day. They didn't
> know at the time
> that alchemy was bogus and the new astronomy was the
> key to modern
> physics.

In fact, the main reason Brahe and Kepler did this
work was to make the astrological predictions
more reliable!

But the quote is quite interesting
for various reasons. First, it seems to suggest
that Dee and Kelley are both alchemists and 
impostors, which, in the case of Dee isn't too
accurate. Dee probably knew quite a bit
about astronomy himself and Brahe was probably even
more interested in alchemy than Dee.

Cheers, Rene

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