John Dalton 👴👴

Neils Bohr

Democritus & Aristotle

DEMOCRITUS & ARISTOTLE

   

                                                                                   Aristotle's Theory of Atoms

       

JOBS:

BIOGRAPHER - LILY

HISTORIAN - LUIS

CHEMIST - TOMMY

PHOTO JOURNALIST - SIERRA

Our blog is about philosophers Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Democritus (Ph460-370 BC). Somewhere around 460 BC Democritus developed the idea of atoms. Aristotle dismissed Democritus' ideas of the atomic theory as "worthless". Many trusted Aristotle and took after his beliefs so they too did not believe Democritus' ideas. The two were the biggest competitors in natural sciences. Democritus had no formal education and learned from his travels throughout Greece. Aristotle was educated at the Plato Academy in Athens for 20 years. The two received much praise for their discoveries and works. Although he did not receive any formal awards, Aristotle received fame through recognition of being such a well known philosopher. Democritus received the Nobel prize for chemistry after his death.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." -Democritus

Democritus was the first to propose an atomic universe, also the first philosopher to posit that we are in the "Milky Way". According to Aristotle, Democritus claimed the soul was composed of fire-atoms while the body was of earth-atoms and the earth atoms needed energy of the fire for cohesion. Democritus argues that the world, including humans, is composed of atoms. Aristotle believed that knowledge could be obtained through interacting with physical objects. He was the first genuine scientist in history. Aristotle is credited with the earliest study of formal logic.

Democritus states that everything is composed of atoms and are also physically and geometrically individual. In between atoms lies empty space. All atoms are indestructible and are solid but invisible. Atoms differ in size , shape, mass and position  arrangement. Solids,Liquids and oils are made up of different atoms. Solids are made up of small pointy atoms. Liquids are made up of large round atoms. Oils consist of very fine small atoms that can slip past one another easily.  

LINKS TO VIDEOS: Democtrius' Atomic Theory
Aristotle's Atomic Theory

ATOM: The basic unit of a chemical element:

Antoine Lavoisier

The Alchemists

The Alchemists

Brewing the Elixir.

Philosopher's Stone

The first chemists, or protochemists,  were the Alchemists, whose goals were to achieve perfection, enlightenment and heavenly bliss by creating a philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. The stone would be able to turn lesser base metals such as mercury or lead into noble metals such as silver and gold (probably to get rich) and the elixir would rejuvenate and confer immortality, or at least longevity.

Alchemy first began in China and Egypt around the 5th century BCE, and saw a surge in the middle ages in Europe. By the 18th century it was abandoned for what is now modern chemistry and medicine, but today's body of scientific knowledge has its roots in alchemy.

Creating light through magic.

Casting a spell.

Some of the more popular incarnations of Alchemists are wizards and necromancers. In addition to Europe, records of alchemy are found in Egypt, the old Islamic world, China and India. References to alchemy have been found written in Sanskrit.

This famous Chinese symbol, the Taoist taijitu, is originally from Chinese Alchemy.

 So what did these guys do?

A famous Alchemical diagram.

In their pursuit of the elixir and the stone, Alchemists developed the experimental method and basic laboratory techniques, versions of which are still used today!
They theorized as to what matter is and suggested that all matter stems from the four basic elements: earth, fire, air and water.

An early lab.

From this stemmed basic terminology and the idea that matter can be classified.
While alchemy had a profound effect on the development of science, it differs quite a bit from real science since it embraced Hermetic ideas of magic, religion, mythology and spirituality. Cryptic symbols and mystical tales were integral parts of alchemy. 

The universe according to Alchemists.

Magnum Opus, latin for "The Great Work", is an alchemical term for the process of creating the philosopher's stone and is attached to laboratory processes of a series of four stages of chemical color changes:

• nigredo, a blackening or melanosis
• albedo, a whitening or leucosis
• citrinitas, a yellowing or xanthosis
• rubedo, a reddening, purpling, or iosis.
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• It has been used to describe personal and spiritual transmutation in the Hermetic tradition as well.

Overall, Alchemists led the way to the "chemical" industries of the day—ore testing and refining, metalworking, production of gunpowder, ink, dyes, paints, cosmetics, leather tanning, ceramics, glass manufacture, preparation of extracts, liquors, and so on. Alchemists contributed distillation to Western Europe, which is how alcoholic beverages are made. Alchemists attempted to arrange information on substances, so as to clarify and anticipate the products of their chemical reactions, and this resulted in early conceptions of chemical elements and the first rudimentary periodic tables. They learned how to extract metals from ores, and how to compose many types of inorganic acids and bases.

Page from alchemic treatise of Ramon Llull, 16th century.

During the 17th century, practical alchemy started to disappear in favor of its younger offshoot chemistry, Robert Boyle, the "father of modern chemistry".  In his book, The Skeptical Chymist, Boyle attacked Paracelsus and the natural philosophy of Aristotle being taught at universities. However, Boyle's biographers, in their emphasis that he laid the foundations of modern chemistry, neglect how steadily he clung to alchemy, in theory, practice and doctrine. The decline of alchemy continued in the 18th century with the birth of modern chemistry, which provided a more precise and reliable framework within a new view of the universe based on rational materialism.

Here are some videos about Alchemy: