Elemental Ideas From Ancient Times
People have known about some chemical elements like gold, silver and copper from antiquity, as these can all be discovered in nature in native form and are relatively simple to mine with primitive tools. However, the notion that there were a limited number of elements from which everything was composed originated with the Greek philosopher Aristotle. About 330 B.C Aristotle proposed that everything is made up of a mixture of one or more of four "roots" (originally put forth by the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles), but later renamed elements by Plato. The four elements were earth, water, air and fire. While the concept of an element was thus introduced, Aristotle's and Plato's ideas did nothing to advance the understanding of the nature of matter.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Periodic Table
Famous quotes containing the words elemental, ideas, ancient and/or times:
“For the elemental creatures go
About my table to and fro,
That hurry from unmeasured mind
To rant and rage in flood and wind....
”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Our ideas are the offspring of our senses; we are not more able to create the form of a being we have not seen, without retrospect to one we know, than we are able to create a new sense. He whose fancy has conceived an idea of the most beautiful form must have composed it from actual existence.”
—Henry Fuseli (1741–1825)
“An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it!”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“Your children don’t have equal talents now and they won’t have equal opportunities later in life. You may be able to divide resources equally in childhood, but your best efforts won’t succeed in shielding them from personal or physical crises. . . . Your heart will be broken a thousand times if you really expect to equalize your children’s happiness by striving to love them equally.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)