What Henniger never expected was that after going through hardships and refining such a huge amount of urine, he did not get the gold he imagined. Instead, he accidentally discovered a new element that humans had never discovered - phosphorus.

To extract gold, the crazy alchemist Hennig Brand bet on all his money and conducted a very crazy-sounding experiment in an underground laboratory in Hamburg, Germany: steam and cook 1,500 gallons (about 5,000 liters) of human urine!

What Henniger never expected was that after going through hardships and refining such a huge amount of urine, he did not get the gold he imagined. Instead, he accidentally discovered a new element that humans had never discovered - phosphorus.

He thought he would make a fortune with this and change the current situation of becoming rich and poor, but he failed to do it until his death, and he finally made a wedding dress for others. Despite this, Henniger's discovery benefited all mankind.

Speaking of which, if Hennig was not greedy, phosphorus might be at least decades or even hundreds of years later before it would be discovered.

1630, Henniger was born in Germany and was an apprentice of a glassmaker when he was a young man. After the outbreak of the "Thirty Years' War in Europe (1618-1648)" in the main battlefield in Germany, he gave up his apprenticeship and joined the German army. He was promoted to an army officer step by step in the army.

It was this change in identity that changed Hennig's social status, which provided the conditions for him to break through the shackles of class and become an alchemist.

After leaving the army, Hennig used his special social status and accumulated resources to slowly achieve transformation and become a successful businessman.

It was during the business process that he came into contact with and gradually became obsessed with the very popular " Alchemy " at that time.

The so-called alchemy also means "Egyptian technology". Its English name is Alchemy, and its vocabulary originates from the Arabic Al-Kimya, which is literally translated as "technology".

"Alchemy" has always been difficult to define. People have ranked it with astrology and supernatural powers, and are called "three great wisdoms in the entire universe."

But in comparison, the latter two are mysterious techniques that cannot be explained by science. Only the former seems to be conducting scientific experiments, but it is also full of mystery. It can only be said that alchemy is a very mysterious and complex science.

When defining, some people regard alchemy as a skill to transform base metal into precious metals (such as gold) or pursue immortality, but this is limited to the technical level and cannot fully cover the content of "alchemy"; some people regard it as a sacred technology that makes humans become equal to gods, but this is too vague and mysterious, and it cannot explain clearly what "alchemy" is, and it is not as clear as the previous definition.

In short, alchemy is believed to be created by a Greek mythical figure named Hermes Trismegistes . It was later passed down for more than 2,500 years and was not denied and abandoned by people until the 19th century.

Current science shows that "alchemy" cannot achieve the purpose that people expect, but before the 19th century, since there was no evidence to prove that it was useless, there were more believers.

2500 years, alchemy has existed in China, Ancient Egypt, , Japan, North Korea, India, Mesopotamia, Persia and other places. In Muslim civilization, relevant records of alchemy can also be found.

Because it spans a long time, has a history of origin, and involves a wide area, and almost no one doubts it, the professions related to alchemy became a very formal and respected profession in the European continent between the 200 years from the 17th to the 19th century, and practitioners were respected by people as "alchemists" or "alchemists" (generally called "alchemists" in China).

may be influenced by the ideas of the times, or by the environment and the people. Even the big guys who have made great contributions to human science and philosophy such as Aristotle , Newton are eager to get alchemy.

With the efforts of alchemists and top human science and philosophers, alchemy has brought many surprising surprises to mankind, such as discovering gunpowder , making matches, etc.

To the 19th century, there were more than 4,000 books on alchemy, which had a huge impact on modern science.

Of course, the most profound impact of alchemy on modern science is in chemistry. It was first considered as "the idea and ancestor of a chemistry philosophy in the Middle Ages", and later it was considered as the "preface of contemporary chemistry".

Here, the contribution made by the alchemist Hennig is the most typical representative.

He accidentally discovered the first chemical element since the record, phosphorus, during the alchemy process, so he has been famous in history. Many people believe that this marks the end of the alchemy era and the beginning of chemistry as a scientific discipline...Hennig himself might have squeezed his head out of mind.

I remember that when he joined the alchemy industry, he was at most just to gain more wealth or find the art of immortality, and did not consider contributing to chemistry.

struggled in the alchemy industry. Hennig was just an amateur at first, but later gradually became one of the authoritative figures in the industry. For this reason, he gave himself a rather strange name "Doctor" that doesn't match the alchemist.

After achieving success in the business field, Hennig married two wives, who had a very important impact on his alchemy journey.

The first wife, he married a very wealthy woman, and received a large amount of dowry from his father-in-law. Later, when the woman died, he devoted his dowry to alchemy.

The second wife, he married a rich daughter, had at least one stepson, and also squeezed a lot of money from them.

After investing all the business income, the dowry of the first wife and the wealth left behind in the alchemy career, Hennig discovered that this was a bottomless pit that could not be filled in at all. The funds were getting less and less, but the research had no results.

Even if all the efforts were wasted, Hennig did not give up. He continued to invest money for the alchemy like a crazy gambler.

has used up the disposable money, and he will throw his mind to the second wife and ask for money from her.

At this time, he had accumulated rich experience and began to try to achieve his goals by building a laboratory. Therefore, most of the money he received from the second wife was invested in the construction of an underground laboratory in Hamburg, Germany.

In order to save money, he also specially asked his stepson to serve as an experimental assistant. The father and son joined forces to study the way to make money.

Henniger's first research was to follow the old path of his predecessors - to study the "Stone of the Sage", and did not expect to extract gold from urine.

The so-called "Sword Stone" is a mythical substance, both in the West and the East. Western alchemists firmly believe that as long as they refine the Stone of the Sage, they can "turn stones into gold" or obtain the elixir of immortality through this thing; for the alchemists in the East, they tend to refine the "golden elixir" similar to the Stone of the Sage, thereby breaking through the natural laws of birth, old age, sickness and death and achieving the purpose of eternal life.

Therefore, this " Sage Stone " that people in the alchemy industry dream of in the East and the West is also known as "Doujin Stone", "Philosopher Stone", "Fifth Element", " Red Medicine Liquid ", etc.

Hennig's belief in finding the Sage Stone is unwavering.

However, since the rise of alchemy, there have been hundreds of practitioners, including many geniuses from various fields, but none of them have refined the Stone of the Sage. It is more like an illusory and beautiful ideal, and it is difficult for people to turn it into reality no matter what.

Hennig is just an ordinary dream chaser and cannot compare with knowledgeable and talented people like Aristotle. They cannot study the Stone of the Sage, and for him, it is even more impossible.

cannot find a way out, Hennig can only find another way and find a new outlet.

He found that human urine is golden and very similar to the color of gold. He then thought, if human urine is extracted, will he get gold from it?

This is a conjecture that seems absurd but has infinite possibilities. No one can draw a conclusion until the experiment draws the results. His idea is wrong.

Practice is the only criterion for testing all theories. In order to verify this crazy conjecture, Hennig's mind was hot and began experimenting in 1669.

After the laboratory was assembled, Hennig began to collect experimental materials.

At the beginning, he found that collecting urine from the whole city was not only inefficient, but also very likely to become a laughing stock for the people in the whole city. To this end, he turned his attention to the German troops stationed near Hamburg , hoping to obtain materials from the soldiers.

This way, the efficiency will be improved and people will avoid being ridiculed.

I heard that someone would pay for urine, so the commander of the stationed troops was very happy. He happily agreed to Hennig's request and quickly collected 1,500 gallons of urine for him, which is about 5,670 liters and about 6.8 tons, which was not an average amount.

With a laboratory and a large amount of materials were obtained, Hennig started to work immediately.

His experiment is quite simple, which is to use distillation and volatilization to steam the collected urine, and then look at what is left at the bottom of the pot.

I heard that my husband spent a lot of money just to cook urine. His wife couldn't figure it out and called him "a lunatic".

After multiple rounds of steaming, the 6.8 tons of urine collected by Hennig finally finished steaming, leaving only a large pile of black residues of unknown substances.

He and his surrounding neighbors finally no longer have to be tortured by the foul odor emitted when the urine is steamed.

Hennig did not immediately deal with the large residue, but left them idle for several months before mixing them with the sand and heating them and continuing to refine them.

During this process, the residue emits a variety of gases, and oils also condense in the mixture.

Finally, a wax-like, snow-white solid deposited at the bottom of the mixture, and they also emit a faint blue light, which was very magical.

Hennig had never seen these things before, he was very sure that this was not gold. So what exactly is it? He didn't know either, so he linked them with the Sage Stone and formally named them "Icy Nocta Luca", which means "Philosopher Stone".

Indeed, Henniger's approach is not wrong. What is extracted is not gold, but this magical thing that has never been seen and still shines may have huge business opportunities and can be monetized, that is the magical "stone of gold and stone".

Later, someone studied "Icy Nocta Luca" in depth and discovered more of its characteristics. Later, based on its characteristics, it was renamed Phosphorum, Latin , which means "light carry" and "cold light", which is the famous chemical element symbol "phosphorum".

In other words, the magical thing that Henniger extracted from his urine was the famous phosphorus later.

However, Hennig just discovered the phosphorus by accident and did not fully understand its characteristics. Therefore, although he was a successful businessman, he could not let the phosphorus be cashed out.

He tried to use phosphorus as lighting and making luminous ink, but none of them achieved certain results.

What’s very bad is that during the process of refining urine, Hennig almost spent all his property and soon fell into a financial crisis, and his situation became increasingly difficult.

In desperation, he made a last resort decision: to leak the secret of creating phosphorus.

He sold this secret that might bring great wealth to Daniel, Got Fred Leibniz, John von Laufensteinkunkel and others.

Among them, Daniel is the smartest, the first to let Phosphorus meet the world and successfully monetize. He brought phosphorus to the palace to perform. The slight cold light and spontaneous combustion of phosphorus made the princes and nobles who had never seen such a situation applauded, and thus made a fortune.

In addition, Daniel also sold the phosphorus sample to chemist Robert Boyle , making another profit. Phosphorus has been spread more widely since then.

This matter has to start from 1677.

That year, Robert happened to witness Daniel's performance in the palace. As an alchemist and later chemist, he believed that the magical thing in Daniel's hands was not a "divine object", but a very special substance.

After Daniel finished his performance, Robert almost forgot Daniel's performance, but he was always obsessed with the material in his hands.

To get them, Robert decided to bleed heavily and bought it from Daniel to study it.

Robert found that Icy Nocta Luca can spontaneously ignite in the air, mixing them with other substances, especially with sulfur, and then it can burn and catch a fire after friction.

His discovery directly paved the way for the later invention of matches and was a very remarkable research result. After further in-depth research on

, Robert decided to change the name of Icy Nocta Luca to "Phosphorus" that meets the phosphorus characteristics. To date, "Phosphorus" has become one of the most popular and accepted chemical symbols.

elsewhere, Robert learned that phosphorus was extracted from the urine by Hennig, so he named this extraction method "urinary phosphorus extraction method".

Later, later generations conducted chemical analysis of urine and concluded that 4NaPO3 and 2SiO2 are the main components of human urine. Among them, P4 is white phosphorus , which is Icy Nocta Luca discovered by Hennig.

There is a small episode here. After Robert's research and promotion, phosphorus has been known to more and more people, and it also brought "a crisis" to Henniger.

Seeing that phosphorus is both magical and rare, a fame and fortune suddenly emerged and claimed to be the discoverer of phosphorus. Fortunately, a friend of Henniger wrote a book that recorded Henniger's extraction of phosphorus from his urine, which made the impostor unable to succeed.

Henniger discovered that phosphorus was just the beginning. After Robert's research on phosphorus, a large number of chemists conducted research on phosphorus, thus resulting in a series of achievements that benefited mankind.

As human society enters the industrial society period, science has gradually risen and has gradually become the main theory supporting the development of human society. Among them, the development of chemistry has also replaced the popular alchemy for more than 2,500 years.

Chemists found that phosphorus exists in all cells in the human body. Once the human body loses this element, it will suffer from rickets or other orthopedic diseases. After further research, biologists found that nucleotide , composed of phosphorus, is the main component of DNA, and has an important impact on human genetics.

In addition to medicine, in agriculture, scientists have also discovered nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It is an essential element in the growth process of plants. Once it is missing, it will affect the height of the plant at the least, and at the worst, it will affect the resistance of the plant to drought, lodging, disease resistance and fruit maturity.

To this end, scientists have developed nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers and vigorously advocated the use of "farmhouse fertilizers". Because the "farmhouse fertilizer" of human excrement also contains phosphorus, which is beneficial to the growth of plants.

However, everything has two sides. Phosphorus can benefit humans, and it can also be used as a weapon by some people with ulterior motives.

In this regard, phosphorus itself is not bad, the ones who use it.

Since the discovery of phosphorus energy spontaneous combustion, some weapon researchers brought phosphorus to weapon research, and then invented the infamous "hell fire" - the white phosphorus bomb.

The ignition point of white phosphorus is very low and the combustion conditions are not high. It can also burn in places with water, making it difficult to extinguish. During the combustion process, it produces a large amount of thick smoke and releases a large amount of heat, causing very serious damage to the human body.

Therefore, most of those who were attacked by white phosphorus bombs had no solution and could only be slowly burned to death in pain.

During World War II, white phosphorus bombs began to be widely used.

Ironically, Henniger discovered phosphorus in Hamburg, Germany. After phosphorus was studied as a weapon, it was used by the Allies to blow up Hamburg.

The United States is the country with the most white phosphorus bombs and the craziest.

After hitting Germany in Europe and coming to Asia, the United States also used white phosphorus bombs to attack the warlike Japanese, causing the Japanese to suffer a lot.

In addition, on the Korean battlefield, Americans also used white phosphorus bombs to deal with the People's Volunteer Army and the Korean People's Army. Revolutionary martyr Qiu Shaoyun was burned to death by the white phosphorus bomb.

In the movie " Changjin Lake ", the scene where Americans use white phosphorus bombs is restored again, and the death of Thunder God is related to white phosphorus bombs.

can be seen that although Americans have tried and tested the use of white phosphorus bombs, it has caused too much damage to the war and is too cruel, which is seriously contrary to humanitarianism.

In order to prevent Americans from using white phosphorus bombs, United Nations held a series of meetings, and finally included white phosphorus bombs in the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons in 1980, stipulating it as a "banned weapon."

However, the United States has always dominated the United Nations. They like to make rules and bully other countries, and they don’t like pressure from other places at all. Therefore, refusing to sign means that they will continue to use white phosphorus bombs on the battlefield.

In recent years, the white phosphorus bomb used by the Israeli army is a masterpiece of the United States. It can be seen that Americans not only use it themselves, but also promote it to the whole world.

Perhaps one day American soldiers were also bombarded by white phosphorus bombs, so Americans would think about whether to use white phosphorus bombs.

all this, I believe that Hennig, the discoverer of phosphorus, could never have imagined it.

is the same. After he discovered phosphorus, he "evaporated from the world". He died in obscurity, and even the specific time of death was uncertain. Some said it was in 1692, and some said it was in 1710.

He can't even control his own destiny, so how could he control the unexpected discovery?

Conclusion:

Putting aside the fact that phosphorus is used on the battlefield, phosphorus has still had a significant and far-reaching impact on human society.

First of all, in terms of medical care, after people discovered that the human body needs phosphorus, some previous difficult and complicated diseases will naturally be solved.

followed by agriculture. Since the discovery that plants also need phosphorus, fertilizers related to phosphorus have been invented to allow crops to thrive and bear fruit, and the problem of human hunger has been solved.

In terms of these two points, Hennig discovered that phosphorus is indeed a very remarkable thing.

In addition, phosphorus is considered to be the first chemical element discovered on human records. Its appearance marks the arrival of the chemical era and the end of the alchemy era.

is visible, how profound its impact on human civilization.