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Hello, Aristotel thought there were four elements earth air fire and water. He was wrong

There are 110 so far 16 in which you produced artificially and none of which figure in Aristotle's original four

But they're all still elements defined as substances which cannot be broken down the building blocks of all life

Today we have the key to the understanding of these elements the periodic table of the elements

Which is a pattern embedded in nature and was as it were miraculously discovered in a dream

With me to discuss chemistry's continuing mission to understand the behavior and relationship of these

Irreducible substances. He's Dr. Mary Archer visiting professor of chemistry at Imperial College London

John Marl and Maritus professor of chemistry at Sussex University and Paul Strathon author of Mendeleev's dream

The quest for the element Paul Strathon why did Aristotle choose earth air fire and water and why did you think that these were these four elements?

He arrived at this well

He wasn't the first person to think of these four as a combination

It was impedacles who did that he took this the idea on from

Impedacles who had the four the notion of the four

At one stage a very lovely poetic image he describes

How a stone falls into a pool. He thought that the four elements the

heaviest ones at the bottom earth then you had water then you had air and then you had fire and he describes

His evidence as being when a stone drops into a pool it drops to the bottom of the water and

The bubbles adhering to it and then drawn towards their own element and they go up through the water towards the air

Um also when you light a fire the fire always goes upwards

This was his idea the four elements had their four places and

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