Alchemy
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
Alchemy is a study of elements. It is like chemistry, but much older. People who studied alchemy were called alchemists.
Alchemists tried to make gold using things that were not gold and they also tried to make the elixir of life. Modern science can do this, but people in the Middle Ages could not. A lot of times alchemists would use stories and legends to try and figure out how to make gold. The psychologist Carl Gustav Jung was interested in this as well.
Alchemy is not a science any more. Some things that the alchemists learned about were important for other sciences, like chemistry.
Today, the conversion (change) to gold is not done, because it is very expensive to do.
This short article can be made longer. You can help Wikipedia by adding to it.