Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] Re: Empedocles



Hi,

I have long thought that the Greeks did pretty
good, if you you replace "four elements" with the
"four states of matter" : Solid, Liquid, Gas, and
Plasma.

Thanks
Roger

********************************************

Gary Karshner wrote:

Jim,
It hard to read a mind that has been gone for over 2400 years. I
think a slightly more fruitful question is why did it take two thousand
years to need a better description of matter?
Fire's replacement with phlogiston in the sixteenth century and didn't last
a hundred years.
I remember when I first read Plato and wanting to join in the
discussion only to realize that I was a tad late. To me one of the amazing
things in the history of our discipline is how long simple ideas go
unquestioned. For example uniform motion takes 1800 years for Kepler and
Galileo to find a better way to describe motion.
I went of a quest similar to your to figure out when science
started and finally realized that some of our oldest written documents are
calendars which require knowledge of how the heavens work to make.
Good luck on your quest.
Gary

At 10:17 PM 6/14/2005 -0600, you wrote:
I have read much of what I have found on the web re the beginnings of
physics. It looks as if it boils down to Empedocles as the instigator --
with his earth, water, fire, and air scheme. But reading these philosophy
authors gives me indigestion -- it is like reading fog -- just too many
words without any substance.

Maybe someone here can translate:

What is "earth"? The stuff out in my garden?

What is "water"? The stuff in the creek?

What is "air"? It is hard to fathom this, but it would appear that he
didn't even know there was the stuff of wind.

And of course "fire" -- What was in his mind? Certainly not a Boy Scout
camp ground.

Maybe if we were to analyze the Greek words. Anyone speak ancient Greek?

Jim



Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l