We’ve all no doubt heard of alchemy – the quasi-magical practice from the Europe’s mist-shrouded past through which curiously dressed old European men sought to turn lead into gold. However as with many such practices from Europe’s medieval and early modern period, it wasn’t quite as simple as what the popular understandings of it would have it to be. Sir Issac Newton was involved with it, as were the polymaths Thomas Harriot and John Dee, as well as a number of other persons of historical note. What exactly they did in the practice of it is another matter.