2263: alchemy & chemistry Feb 25, 2021

Alchemy is to chemistry as astrology is to astronomy.

For much of history each pair was basically considered the same, as both had mystical and occult elements associated with them, and indeed even the more so-to-speak scientific aspects of these disciplines were in service of the spiritual ones until fairly recently. This is actually where the sense of chemistry relating to romantic attraction comes in. The connection between 'astrology' and 'astronomy' is fairly obvious, but the etymological connection between 'alchemy' and 'chemistry' is obscured somewhat by Arabic, with the al- just being the Arabic definite article i.e. 'the'. Otherwise the words have the same roots—even though the exact root is the cause of some disagreement—and really just means 'science'. Indeed, in the 17th century both words had a reduction in meaning, having both related to the occult, natural philosophical, as well as what might be thought as chemistry today or even metallurgy. Now, 'alchemy' only kept the sense of the pursuit of transforming base metals into gold and similar processes.