Robert Boyle (1627-1691), formulator of "Boyle's Law" which relates the pressure of a gas to its volume. Lavoisier had peeked beyond the dining room into the kitchen. Recognizing that “inflammable air” and “vital air” were elements, he dubbed them with the names by which we know them today. Lavoisier listed 31 materials which he proposed - correctly - were the true elements, including sulfur, iron, carbon, copper, molybdenum, etc. From this remarkable intuition all else followed. The giant step in this evolution of thought - from philosophical Principle to materialistic Element - was made by Lavoisier, who in his Treatise of 1789 realized that since water was manufactured by the combination of “inflammable gas” (hydrogen) and “vital air” (oxygen), then water must be a compound. It was like trying to identify the flour, sugar, salt, lard, eggs and spices that went into the baking of a cake from the smells emanating from the final concoction! Only rarely did an element present itself in its simple form in nature - such as gold. True elements were ingredients to worldly materials, and usually were hidden in complex combinations. The truth was much more subtle - and surprisingly simple. In other words, if something was an element, then it must be proven by experiment to be separable as basic material which could not be reduced to any more fundamental stuff. He realized that Aristotle’s four elements and the alchemists’ three principles could not be correct, because they were never proven to compose, nor could they be extracted from, any other substances. Robert Boyle, best known for his “Boyle’s Law”, in the 1600s discussed in “The Sceptical Chymist” the standards by which a substance could be adjudged as an element. A thousand years ago he explained that mercury could contribute “fluidity,” and sulfur “combustibility” later alchemists added salt, which would confer “fixity.” The progenitor of this theory was the Arabian alchemist Geber. The alchemists, who devoted untold grueling hours to transmute metals into gold, believed that in addition to the four Aristotelian elements, two principles gave rise to all natural substances: mercury and sulfur. It would take thousands of years for mankind to evolve his thinking from Principles - which were ethereal notions describing the perceptions of this material world - to Elements - real, concrete basic stuff of this universe. Water was the obvious basic essence, and Aristotle expanded the Greek philosophy to encompass an obscure mixture of four elements - fire, earth, water and air - as being responsible for the makeup of all materials of the Earth. The ancient Greeks were the first to address the question of what these principles might be. Beginning with recorded history, the ancient Egyptians were deeply preoccupied with life and death and sought answers through medications, pharmaceutical preparations and incantations. Introduction to Ancients and Alchemists The Ancientsįor over five millennia the mysterious transmutation of substances into new ones - the enigmatic metamorphosis of sand and clay into glass and pottery, the mutation of larvae into flies, the basic riddle of life itself - suggested to the human mind that deep-seated principles were responsible.
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