Has anyone else noticed that the classical elements of antiquity map onto the 4 states of matter?

In My Humble Opinion
1

earth = solid
water = liquid
air = gas
fire = plasma

Usually the elements of antiquity are dismissed offhand because they are compared to today’s periodic table. However, they are excellent basic prototypes for us of the four states of matter.

Aether would be more difficult to map out, but might it work as something like energy, spacetime, or strings?

An interesting sidenote: On the surface of the Earth, plasma is rarest while liquid is commonest. On a larger scale, it is the opposite.

Disclaimer: I am merely a dilettante in physics.

2

I’m not certain but I don’t think fire is a plasma (at least not wood fire and the like).

3

There are like 15 states of matter, i mean once you get down to the basics, matter is just a type of energy in the higgs field

4

And of course the Quintessence, Milla Jovovich.

5

But what if you’re Japanses, and the classical elements are Chi, Ka, Fū, Sui, and Kū?

6

It appears to be the same, with “Void” replacing “Aether”.

7

The above link doesn’t work. Here’s the corrected one: (sorry)

8

The link between elements and phases is interesting, but only in the way that a cloud shaped like a train is interesting.

It breaks down if you try to do anything further with it - phases simply do not combine or interact like the ancient elements were believed to.

For example, steam is classically said to be a mixture of fire and water. The idea was that you could take the fire out of the steam and get back to pure water. But steam isn’t a combination of plasma and liquid that can revert to plasma and liquid. Steam is a plain old gas (which means the ancients should have said that fire + water = air, but they didn’t).

9

Since there seems to be no basic question here, let’s move it to IMHO.

samclem Moderator

10

The ancients weren’t stupid, just uninformed. The classical elements map to the states of matter (more or less) because it was the states of matter that inspired the classical element paradigm. The OP appears to find it amazing that the ancient Greeks recognized that matter occurred in different states.

11

…and In Quintessence, by Squeeze.

12

My main amazement is in how the ancient elements are routinely compared with the periodic table, and therefore judged to be totally juvenile and misinformed, while a better mapping exists with the states of matter.

13

I think Isaac Asimov wrote an essay on the same idea.

14

Quoth ChrisBooth12:

There’s a lot more than that. There are something like a dozen different phases of water ice alone (all solid, but with different crystalline structures).

15

The eskimos might rank the primality of ‘water-ice’ (or slush) up there with the rest of the primary phases.

16

Worse, Piers Anthony made the same connection in his… Tarot series? or the related Kirlian series? One of those, anyway. So not exactly an original insight.

17

Both. They’re the same universe, but the Tarot series is much earlier. The Kirlian series references the Tarot and Brother Whatever from the Tarot series.