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[Phys-L] Re: Earth, fire, water, air



A nice little place to take a quick look is at ParticleAdventure.org (NO
'www'! Weird, huh?) During their intro to atomic theories, they cover
several of these early "Periodic Tables". In the 2nd slide, according to the
authors of the site, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab:

"The Greek thinker Empedocles [450BC] first classified the fundamental
elements as fire, air, earth, and water, although our particular diagram
reflects Aristotle's classification [350BC].

Did you know?
The ancient Chinese believed that the five basic components (in Pinyin, Wu
Xing) of the physical universe were earth, wood, metal, fire, and water. And
in India, the Samkhya-karikas by Ishvarakrsna (c. 3rd century AD) proclaims
the five gross elements to be space, air, fire, water, and earth. "

So, it seems every semi-intelligent civilization had their own version of
this. Further, does this make Aristotle a plagiarist? Cool! I'm sure a few
Googles on the above terms will yield more concrete info.



Daryl L. Taylor, Fizzix Guy
Greenwich HS, CT
PAEMST '96
International Internet Educator of the Year '03
NASA SEU Educator Ambassador
www.DarylScience.com

This email prepared and transmitted using 100% recycled electrons!



-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu]On
Behalf Of Jim Green
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 9:55 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Earth, fire, water, air


Aristotle apparently held that the universe is composed of "earth, fire,
water, air."

What images were in his head when he said this? Dirt and a bond fire etc?

Was he the first to say this?

What was believed before this?

A reference to this history would be nice.

TX

Jim


Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen
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