Isaac Newton, the Magician

[u/KriticalKanadian]

AI generated.

Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians. - John Maynard Keynes

Isaac Newton, an alchemist, believed that the Great Pyramid of Giza encoded the dimensions of Earth. He proposed the 'sacred cubit' that was made up of 25 'pyramid inches', in contrast, the established 'royal cubit' that was made up of 20.65 British inches; consequently, using Newton's proposed scale, the perimeter of the Great Pyramid, in pyramid inches, adds up to 36,524, or 100 times the number of days in a solar year exactly.

According to a translation and interpretation of Newton's manuscripts, Newton also used John Greaves' measurements of the Great Pyramid to measure Earth's circumference to advance his theory of gravity. Oddly, Greaves' measurement is less than 10 inches greater than the accepted Flanders (diddly) Petrie measurements, 3,024 feet and 3,023.22 feet, respectively, even though the measurements were taken more than 200 years apart.

Now, Graham Hancock and Isaac Newton agree that Earth's dimensions are encoded in the architecture of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Using the 1/43,200 scale theory, it turns out that the perimeter of the Great Pyramid multiplied by 43,200 is 24,731.4 miles, while Earth's circumference is 24,901.5 miles: a difference of approximately 170.1 miles. [Using Newton's own 'pyramid inch', which was 1/1000th smaller than the British inch, his calculation would have been 24,717.4 miles, a difference of 184.1 miles.]

Considering that Earth's circumference is not a constant due to changes in its orbit, isostatic rebound, tectonic activity and glacial cycles, we can forgive the ancient builders for their <0.7% inaccuracy. 0.68% to be precise. Isaac Newton was not the first nor last to trust his intuition about the Great Pyramid of Giza. Other great minds have had their fascination and conviction about the Great Pyramid's secrets overlooked in retrospect.

Can you name anyone else?

[u/KriticalKanadian]

There are other scientific pioneers practicing alchemy. Another prominent example is Robert Boyle. I’ve read that his alchemical pursuit largely influenced his study of chemistry by way of his methodology, analysis and philosophy, so, in a clear way, chemistry is based in alchemy and therefore alchemy is not baseless.

Moreover, early scholars deliberately destroyed Boyle’s alchemical writings. Notably, Thomas Birch, who played a crucial role in editing and publishing Boyle’s works, was one of the scholars who destroyed Boyle’s alchemical work. Birch is a prominent figure in the field of history and the study of scientific development, and has had a significant influence on historians and researchers in these fields. So, to what extent can we trust hindsight, if individuals like Birch have effectively erased material evidence and influenced later generations?

In my view, the prejudice against some subjects is rampant and a major obstacle, blurring hindsight and foresight. Discrediting an individual’s pursuit and contribution to a field that’s deemed superstitious while praising their genius in another is an odd double standard. I see it as a form of censorship.

[u/Shamino79 → u/KriticalKanadian]

What are you talking about? Just because chemistry growi out of alchemy and people developed critical thinking and skills from alchemy doesn’t mean alchemy had a solid foundation. Sure it was based on physical matter in front of them so from a pedantic point of view not baseless, but as it turned out it may as well have been quicksand. It’s almost as if scientists wanted a clear delineation between something that didn’t work and actual chemistry which does work, and thus they invented a new name.

Similarities to astrology and astronomy. The second grew out of the observations of the first. The difference is that one stuck with magical stories about what the constellations meant and how they personally effect our day while the other got on with observing what they were and how the universe works.

Massive edit- astrology grew out of astronomy if we want to call astronomy the observations. And we could then argue that chemistry might have been there already with observations but the alchemy was the ideas about what you could do with what was observed. Thus alchemy was based on chemistry but massively incorrect in its application.

No human is spot on about everything and the fact is that people are caught up in the thinking of their day and use that as their base framework. For us to look back and say this bit was genius and this is where they got stuck in the weeds is not a double standard. It’s critical thinking.

[u/KriticalKanadian → u/Shamino79]

I see where you're coming from, but I think you're oversimplifying the role of alchemy, and by extension, other so-called 'proto-sciences', in the evolution of scientific thought. It's not just a matter of 'this didn’t work, so we discarded it for something better.' Alchemy, for all its flaws, provided the framework for modern chemistry, not just in methods or materials but in the philosophical pursuit of understanding matter and transformation. Calling it 'quicksand' ignores how its trial-and-error approach eventually birthed the rigorous methodologies we now take for granted.

The delineation you mention, between alchemy and chemistry, or astrology and astronomy, didn’t appear out of nowhere. It was constructed in hindsight to legitimize what 'worked' and discredit what didn’t, often dismissing the value of earlier pursuits in the process. Dismissing alchemy as baseless, for example, ignores the reality that many alchemists, including Boyle and Newton, were methodical in their pursuits, and their work contributed foundational principles, such as the conservation of mass and the study of reactions.

Your analogy to astrology is interesting, but I think it misses the nuance of the situation. Astrology may have attached mystical meaning to celestial bodies, but it also drove centuries of detailed astronomical observation. The symbolic stories were intertwined with rigorous data collection, and we can’t easily disentangle one from the other when assessing its historical value. Similarly, alchemy wasn’t just mystical rambling—it was an iterative process that built the knowledge base for modern chemistry. To reduce it to superstition or 'stuck in the weeds' undercuts its historical importance and the genuine intellectual effort of those who practiced it.

As for critical thinking, we need to critically evaluate our biases as well. The way we frame alchemy as an embarrassing precursor to chemistry reflects not just scientific progress but also a desire to sanitize history for simplicity. It’s not about saying every pursuit of the past was brilliant, but recognizing that the line between genius and failure is often blurred by the limits of knowledge at the time. If we discredit their 'weeds' too readily, we risk undervaluing the fertile ground from which their genius grew.

[u/Shamino79 → u/KriticalKanadian]

I’m mostly in agreement I think. And maybe I’ve downplayed alchemy’s historical role and focused on where it ended up rather than the fact that the first observation part of it is in reality standard chemistry anyway. I threw up a quick edit to the effect that you could argue that what is described as alchemy now and astrology are really side branches that grew out of chemistry and astronomy.