![]() The idea that each element had its own unique atom became popular, as did the idea that the elements combined with each other to form compounds. In 1789 Lavoisier published a list of 33 “elements”, many of which actually are elements as we understand the concept today. He took on Boyle’s challenge and went searching for elements, which he defined as anything that could not be broken down further. The man who provided them was French aristocrat Antoine Lavoisier. Boyle argued that you couldn’t just assert that matter was made of four elements you had to prove it with repeatable experiments. That turning point came in 1661 when philosopher Robert Boyle published a groundbreaking book called The Sceptical Chymist, which applied the newly-minted scientific methods to chymie. They were also craftsmen who used their expertise at manipulating and transforming materials to produce medicines, glass and explosives.īut alchemy wasn’t a science. The alchemists’ main goal was the philosopher’s stone, a substance which could transmute base metals into gold and silver, cure any disease and held the key to eternal life. Their knowledge eventually found its way to medieval Europe, where practitioners of magick wrapped it in mysticism and called it alchemy or just chymie. The tradition was later passed to Islamic scholars, who called it al-khimya. They called their craft khymeia, meaning “cast together”. Artisans steeped in Aristotelian philosophy began to dabble in metallurgy and dye-making. A metal, for instance, was made from earth and water, but if you heated it some of the earth changed to fire.Īristotle died in 322 BC, a decade after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and established a new capital, Alexandria. Materials had particular qualities because of the proportion of these elements that they contained. Aristotle asserted that everything was made from four elements: earth, fire, air and water. The first steps were made by philosophers in ancient Greece. What happens when a candle burns? Why does a pinch of salt disappear when stirred into a glass of water? Can lead be turned into gold? We now recognise those questions as belonging to the realm of chemistry, which has a reputation as a rather dull and sober science. Mendeleev’s eureka moment was the culmination of centuries of work trying to understand and control the processes of material change. By the evening he had the outline of one of the most successful scientific theories of all time: the periodic table of the elements. But he cancelled and spent the day scribbling feverishly at home. ![]() It was 17 February 1869 and Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev was due to do some consultancy work at a cheese factory in St Petersburg. The cheesemakers were probably none too impressed, but the rest of the world should be eternally grateful.
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