RankingsPrimerArbiterPhysicistMathematicianContrarianQESites logClaimsSourcesResearch notes

2026-10-08 - Google web search: related work and secondary literature (snippets only)

Results here were seen as Google snippets; the pages were not opened (time limit). Each is a lead for the next run.

Queries and findings [web, snippet]

  1. Soddy "Transmutation: the vital problem of the future" OR "forgotten race" OR "lost civilisation" philosopher's stone Morrisson "Modern Alchemy" - Mark S. Morrisson, Modern Alchemy: Occultism and the Emergence of Atomic Theory (Oxford University Press; year 2007 per [memory], high confidence; OUP page https://global.oup.com/academic/product/modern-a...). Snippet: "between 1904 and 1914, Soddy's 1912 article 'Transmutation: The Vital Problem of the Future'" (the article is named with Arthur Kitson in a yumpu snippet: "...Arthur Kitson, Soddy penned an article entitled 'Transmutation: The Vital Problem of the Future.' There, Soddy referred to gold as ..."). A copy on narod.ru was not used (copyright status unclear). - Brill, "Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies" (2019), ch. 1 "Speculations and Fantasies": quotes Soddy's "forgotten race of men". - Academia.edu, "Lost Science: The Strange Case of Physics and Theosophy"; UCL Discovery "Victorian Alchemy" thesis.
  2. Kelvin 1906 radium controversy energy from ether external source Soddy "The Times" helium - L. Badash, "How the 'Newer Alchemy' Was Received", (1966; JSTOR; journal Scientific American per [memory], medium confidence): Kelvin "wrote a letter to the editor. He protested that the emission of helium from ..." radium. - L. Campos, Radium and the Secret of Life (University of Chicago Press, 2015 per [memory], high confidence; an IA PDF and De Gruyter chapter "The Birth of Living Radium"): "By 1906 Soddy was referring to radium as 'the missing big brother ...'". - Gutenberg, The New Physics and Its Evolution (Lucien Poincaré, English translation 1907, [memory] high confidence): discusses radium energy "under the influence of some external radiation".
  3. Ramsay 1907 copper lithium transmutation emanation Cameron Curie Gleditsch repeat Soddy criticism - Unz/Outlook 14 Sept 1907 "The Transmutation of the Chemical Elements": "Sir William Ramsay has changed copper into lithium." - F. Soddy, "Radioactivity", Chemical Society Annual Reports (1909; pubs.rsc.org): "Experiments to detect lithium after the direct action of the rays and emanation of radium on salts of copper and gold have given negative results." - A. Lykknes (2004) and a ResearchGate paper on Ellen Gleditsch: Gleditsch and Curie "investigated Ramsay and Cameron's claims and found that the traces of lithium in their copper solutions probably originated from the glass container."
  4. Herman Daly "The Economic Thought of Frederick Soddy" 1980 pdf - H. E. Daly, History of Political Economy 12(4), 469-488 (1980) (Duke; RePEc https://ideas.repec.org/a/hop/hopeec/v12y1980i4p469-488.html); a reprint on billtotten.blogspot.com; W. S. Kern 1990 "The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy in ..." (Cambridge).
  5. Merricks "The World Made New" Frederick Soddy 1996 biography ... - L. Merricks, The World Made New: Frederick Soddy, Science, Politics, and Environment (OUP, 1996, 246 pp.).
  6. Hull 1994 thesis Glasgow "British scientists and economists" Soddy - A. J. Hull, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow 1994, "British scientists and economists c.1900-..." (Enlighten Theses, https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ ... 1994hullphd), on public rhetoric of scientists and economists.
  7. Soddy "Board of Invention and Research" 1915 OR 1916 chemist Aberdeen secret patent OR "National Archives" - The National Archives research guide "Research and development in the Royal Navy": BIR established July 1915; Admiralty records are the place to look for Soddy's BIR reports (ADM series, not identified yet).

How it bears on the claims

  • Claim 7 (philosopher's stone / forgotten civilisation; gold-silver series): Morrisson and the Brill volume treat Soddy's speculation as part of a wider link between occult alchemy and early atomic science, and name his 1912 "Transmutation" article as its fullest statement.
  • Claim 2: Badash, Campos and PoincarĂ© document the alternative of the time, that radium's energy might come from outside (external radiation, ether), and Kelvin's 1906 objection.
  • Priority 3 related work: Ramsay and Cameron's 1907 claim of artificial transmutation (copper to lithium) is a claimed transmutation by others; Soddy's 1909 report states negative results on copper and gold, and Curie and Gleditsch traced the lithium to glass. This is the record of a transmutation claim that was tested and not confirmed at the time, to be weighed beside Rutherford's 1919 nitrogen result in the 1920 book.
  • Claim 7 economics: Daly 1980 and Merricks 1996 are the main secondary accounts of how the energy-wealth principle developed into his monetary reform work.