For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the original elements, the four elements Aristotle wrote about many millennia ago: fire, water, wind, and earth. Of course we no longer think of these as elements in the chemical sense. Instead we have the periodic table of elements, with well over a hundred elements identified so far.
But just for fun, I thought I’d try to find a way to connect the old Aristotelian elements to the first four modern chemical elements: hydrogen, helium, lithium, and beryllium. Here’s what I came up with:
- Hydrogen: Let’s start by associating hydrogen with “water.” The word hydrogen actually means “water maker.” It got its name because in 1783, Antoine Lavoisier demonstrated that the oxidation of hydrogen gas produced water (this experiment also proved that water is not elemental).
- Helium: Helium was first detected in the solar spectrum in 1868 and was thus named after the Greek word for “sun.” The Sun is pretty fiery, so my first instinct was to make helium represent “fire.” But I’m going to go with “air” instead, because of helium’s use in balloons and airships.
- Lithium: As I’ve written about previously, lithium was first discovered using a method called a flame test. When a chemical substance is burned, the color of the flame can be used to determine the chemical’s identity. Lithium burns with a characteristic bright crimson flame. Therefore, I’m choosing to associate lithium with “fire.”
- Beryllium: Beryllium was first identified in 1798 as a component of the mineral beryl, specifically a form of green beryl we all know as an emerald. So I think I can safely wrap this little game up by connecting beryllium with “earth.”
So how did I do? Do you agree with the connections I came up with? Are there other connections we could think up that might work better?
Okay, maybe this was more of an exercise in creativity than science. I’m okay with that. And besides, in the half-hour I spent researching for this post, I learned a few things about the first four elements of the periodic table that I didn’t know before. That’s always a plus.
Anyway, next time on Molecular Monday, we’ll be talking about boron. Now I wonder if I can find some way to associate boron with the girl from The Fifth Element.
Planet Pailly 
It’s kind of interesting that, while we have over a hundred things we now call elements, the Greeks were on the right track as far as a few fundamental building blocks for reality. They might regard the elementary particles of the standard model as the actual type of elements they had in mind, or maybe the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.
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Oh, that’s an interesting thought! I guess the fundamental forces are, in a way, more “elemental” than the elements.
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Seems like you have the best combination already. I agree that helium should be with air instead of water. And lithium gives off burnable hydrogen when placed in water, so I think associating it with fire is appropriate.
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Oh cool, I didn’t know that about lithium and water, although now that I’m thinking about it it makes sense.
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