The Spell, by William Fettes Douglas, 1864. © National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, The Bridgeman Art Library.

Magic Shows

Volume V, Number 3 | summer 2012

Miscellany

When Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy discovered that with radioactivity one atom can be transformed into another, Soddy recalled blurting out “Rutherford, this is transmutation: the thorium is disintegrating and transmuting itself into argon gas.” As “the words seemed to flash through” Soddy “as if from some outside force,” Rutherford replied, “For Mike’s sake, Soddy, don’t call it transmutation. They’ll have our heads off as alchemists.”

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.

—Thomas Malory, c. 1470