Chemistry Escape Room: «The 4 Elements»
Fabio Galiana Martínez
Empedocles of Agrigentum (495–435 BCE) was a philosopher and healer. He had the theory that only four elements existed: fire, water, earth, and air. All of nature was composed of a mixture of these, and it was believed that friendship united them and hatred separated them. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, added to Empedocles’ hypothesis the idea of the “four elemental qualities”: wet/dry and hot/cold.
Even Plato and Aristotle added a new element: aether, also called quintessence. It was used to explain various natural phenomena, such as the movement of light, gravity, or the oscillation of stars in the sky. Physicists believed that aether filled all space and was the medium through which light traveled. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the atomic theory could be confirmed thanks to the Michelson–Morley experiment. We now know that matter is made up of atoms, composed of a nucleus of protons and neutrons, and a cloud of electrons.
The current periodic table consists of 118 chemical elements, and its creator was Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist. The elements are arranged in groups (columns) and periods (rows) that share certain properties. At the time of its publication, each new element was discovered by surprise. For the pre-chemists, the alchemists, the highest aspiration was to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone—a substance capable of «phlogistizing»—turning any element into gold, granting eternal life, and performing all kinds of magical feats.
The race to discover new elements of the periodic table hasn’t come to an end, but it has slowed down. Today, the efforts of the chemical community are not so much focused on synthesizing new atomic structures as on better understanding the already known superheavy elements. These elements are found in the last positions, from element 100 onward. They were not discovered, isolated, studied, and placed in their positions—they were manufactured.
In collaboration with the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Science and Innovation.
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