News of transmutations performed in Berlin in 1701 by an apothecary’s apprentice named Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682–1719) not only drew the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) to the scene but also led to Böttger’s arrest by soldiers of Duke August the Strong of Saxony. Böttger spent the rest of his life in confinement, where, although he did not satisfy August’s demands to make gold, he did help discover the secret to making porcelain, a commercial product that proved nearly as lucrative.
