I imagine that the many hands emerging from the clouds in alchemical iconography indicate something tangible and physical.
It’s well known that the Olympian deities met with ordinary mortals on mountaintops; the overlooked detail was the obligatory presence of clouds at the summit. Hera-the-Air, in particular, granted audience to humans among the clouds. In Physics, clouds are part of the water cycle, as we will see in Water Alchemy, and produce an electrical potential with the ground, creating thunder, as we will see in Electricity.
In fact, in Die Sonne von Osten, 1783, we can read: “Hermetic Philosophers say that their Materia is being born like the thunder and leaves behind similar signs”.
Yes, this is a phrase you’ll often find in modern alchemy books. When alchemists point to a certain metaphor by saying “it’s like…,” they usually mean that’s exactly what it is. This stage represents the acme of the water cycle, plus the encounter with a cold zone. Note that it focuses on the thunder and not the lightning. The final detail is understanding what the analogy with the seed, a ubiquitous symbol, represents in alchemical symbolism. But we’ll see that later.
The cloud chamber is an instrument designed by Wilson to study the formation of clouds, it was fundamental for showing us the passage of particles, such as muons, in a medium which is precisely the fog that is produced inside it. It is a kind of tank in which supersaturated steam is produced. The particles passing through the tank ionize the molecules inside and the water droplets align along the ionization path.
A cloud chamber is the simplest type of particle detector: a continuously sensitive cloud chamber. An extremely simple, low-cost version consists of a simple sealed vessel filled with air and alcohol vapor, cooled to a very low temperature, which can detect particles, especially muons from particularly energetic cosmic rays.
The operating principle of a cloud chamber is very simple: alcohol evaporates from the sponge on the top of the can and – as it diffuses downwards – becomes supersaturated due to the temperature gradient (under the can, there is solid CO2). When an ionizing particle, typically muons, passes into the supersaturated zone that forms a few centimeters above the dry ice, the ionization of the air causes the alcohol to condense, which is visible as a thin thread.
Elevated Sinkholes also come to mind, is that a bad association?
Elevated sinkholes are basically extreme cold-air pools which are basically funnel-shaped karst basins that determine strong radiative cooling. To cause their peculiarity they must present a route for surface water to disappear underground. From studies carried out, these holes seem to swallow long-wave radiation. Or, to put it better, a downward long-wave radiation was confirmed. Obvious, one might say, since longwave radiation is thermal radiation: these are longer wavelengths of visible light emitted by the Earth’s surface and atmosphere when they absorb shortwave radiation from the sun. Sunlight that reaches Earth’s surface and atmosphere is, in this case, absorbed (an entire karst system develops underneath). However, in the case of high mountain sinkholes, an interesting case of absorption of long-wavelength infrared waves occurs: instead of an increase in the temperature of the absorbing material – because the energy of the infrared waves is generally converted into thermal energy – it cools down. And this is not because I read about it, but because I experienced it firsthand near such a sinkhole.
The question an alchemist might ask is: could a sinkhole also be a Spiritus Mundis swallow hole? It’s very likely. An alchemist would immediately go and collect this snow-water, a physicist would observe that it would probably be a fairly ionized product and perhaps with some contamination.
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