4-non-element elements

[SolkaTruesilver]

Since Rich so cleverly put the topic on, I'd add my 2 cents about "the elements not being elements".

our modern definition of "element" is quite different than the Greek-original one, where only Fire, Water, Air and Earth (maybe Ether) would be considered "elements". But I think that the ancient Greeks took those 4 elements because each represent a state of existence for matter.

Earth would represent the solids
Water the liquis
Air the gaz
and Fire would represent anything energetic (Lightning and Fire, mostly)

They though that anything was made out of these 4 things.

[K2]

Lightning Elemental?


sounds like a party

[Indon]

Personally, I think it's largely a coincidence that the four classic elements (earth, water, air, fire) correspond with the four states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma).

I mean, imagine if we were using the eastern classic elements set for our fantasy (I do believe Exalted does, actually)? I don't think 'wood' equates to a state of matter.

[Haruki-kun]

It depends on what culture you're talking about...
In Japan, for example, the 5 elements were Fire, Earth, Water, Air,and Void.

In China there were a few more, like wood and metal, and some cultures even consider the soul and light as elements.

[Trobby]

There's some truth in your words, but only because of cultural similarities.

Think about it: Those four "classical elements" were imagined by Greek Philosophers, who then passed down their teachings to other Greek philosophers, who then passed it down to Roman Philosophers when they were conquered, who then passed it down to Monks when the Dark Ages came along, who then passed it down to Renassaince (?) men who were interested in that sort of thing, and a couple hundred years later scholars studied that, and decided that even though it wasn't physiologically correct, it was still a sound principal and based their foundation of reality upon a smiliar concept.

Like Indon said: If we went by Asian standards, the relation wouldn't be quite as strong, but because modern science is based off of Western Culture, not Eastern culture, the relation is there only because it was created by our own scientists as a tribute to the great philosophers of ancient times.

People do that all the time in science. Why do you think we call it a "Galaxy"? You've heard of the phrase "Aristotilian Method", right? And let's not forget "Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto", all named after Roman Gods. ((And Gaia, though we prefer to call ourselves "Earth")).

[SolkaTruesilver]

what I wonder, is where the root "Terre" comes from. In french, "Terre" means "Earth" (both as the planet and the element). However, I know that "Terra" (of other words with the same base) is sometime common to refer to our planet, along with "Gaia". Someone knows where it comes from?

[hewhosaysfish]

what I wonder, is where the root "Terre" comes from. In french, "Terre" means "Earth" (both as the planet and the element). However, I know that "Terra" (of other words with the same base) is sometime common to refer to our planet, along with "Gaia". Someone knows where it comes from?

Gaia is Greek. Terra is Roman(/Latin).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_%28mythology%29

[Tricky]

Personally, I think it's largely a coincidence that the four classic elements (earth, water, air, fire) correspond with the four states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma).

I mean, imagine if we were using the eastern classic elements set for our fantasy (I do believe Exalted does, actually)? I don't think 'wood' equates to a state of matter.

I wouldn't say it's a coincidence at all. At least not for air, water, and earth. Those are, after all, our main examples of the gas, liquid, and solid states of matter, respectively.

The fire/plasma connection is a bit of a stretch.

[Trobby]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra

Wikipedia is your fwiend. ^.^ ((Read the first one.))

Editorial Comment: Oh snap! I got sniped!

[BisectedBrioche]

Isn't "plastic" (i.e. Solids which flow slowly) also considered a state of matter sometimes?

[Trobby]

Physically speaking, certain things like glass and plastic exhibit characteristics of liquids over long periods of time, but can be utilized as solids in the short-term. I don't think they consider it an entirely different form of element though, just a sort of "odd case". In reality, most things aren't "pure solid" or "pure liquid", just molecules that have a different ammount of space between them that we then categorize by their behavior.

Consider this: Is boiling water gaseous, or liquid?

I guess that doesn't really answer your question...but we're talking about a theoretical coorilation anyway, so I didn't expect to answer it at all. ^^;

[Tordek]

In the older D&D 2E 'Skills and Powers' there was an alchemist class who didn't divide the universe into 4 elements, but into hundreds. This reminded me of that.

I know Rich wanted to go with humor (and it was hilarious) but it could've just as easily have been Titanium Golems.

Also, has anyone ever thrown a demi-elemental at their PCs? I've done shadow and mist elementals before.

[The Familiar]

In the older D&D 2E 'Skills and Powers' there was an alchemist class who didn't divide the universe into 4 elements, but into hundreds. This reminded me of that.

I know Rich wanted to go with humor (and it was hilarious) but it could've just as easily have been Titanium Golems.


Except the labor and materials for a Titanium Golem would've cost more than the resources necessary to summon a Titanium Elemental.

That much Titanium isn't cheap, you know. :smallbiggrin:

[Barbarianpixie]

Physically speaking, certain things like glass and plastic exhibit characteristics of liquids over long periods of time, but can be utilized as solids in the short-term. ^^;

If I don't misunderstand you (if I do, sorry), what you say about glass is an urban legend: I take it you were referring to the idea that it flows over time, leading to old windows being thicker at the bottom.

http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html

[atteSmythe]

If I don't misunderstand you (if I do, sorry), what you say about glass is an urban legend: I take it you were referring to the idea that it flows over time, leading to old windows being thicker at the bottom.
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html (http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/%7Ebderksen/florin.html)

I've seen that so-called rebuttal before. I'm not saying that I believe that glass is really a liquid, but I do claim that that rebuttal is a nonsensical load of poorly-defended assertions. After all, if something happens very slowly (http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml), it must not happen at all! No one can see the pitch flowing, so it must obviously be a solid!

[Sky_Schemer]

Except the labor and materials for a Titanium Golem would've cost more than the resources necessary to summon a Titanium Elemental.

Not to mention making those titanium welds without contamination would be pretty difficult. A golem's no good it the parts fall off. :smallbiggrin:

[Darkxarth]

The four classic elements do in fact conform to states of matter.

It was believed that all matter could be derived from those four elements. And each element had a special place on Earth.

Earth is at the bottom. Being the heaviest element, it always seeks to find it's way down, where it belongs.

Water is next. Sits on top of Earth, that's why it falls from the sky (Air) but dirt doesn't float in water.

Air is after that. It is the second highest element, sitting atop Earth and Water. Thus, if you make a bubble underwater, it rises to the top, trying to get to its natural place, above Water.

Fire is on top. Thus, when you see a flame, it always burns upward, trying to get to its rightful place above Air.

There's another element that is occasionally included, I can't remember what it's called, maybe Ether or Quasi-something, but not Void. But it was above Fire and is what 'space' was made of.

Also, other forms of matter were made of a combination of the elements. Wood, for example, was a combination of Earth, Air, and Fire. Thus, when you burned it, it created ash (Earth), smoke (Air), and fire (duh). It was a very good system, considering what they knew at the time.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Think about it: Those four "classical elements" were imagined by Greek Philosophers, who then passed down their teachings to other Greek philosophers, who then passed it down to Roman Philosophers when they were conquered, who then passed it down to Monks when the Dark Ages came along, who then passed it down to Renassaince (?) men who were interested in that sort of thing, and a couple hundred years later scholars studied that, and decided that even though it wasn't physiologically correct, it was still a sound principal and based their foundation of reality upon a smiliar concept.

Like Indon said: If we went by Asian standards, the relation wouldn't be quite as strong, but because modern science is based off of Western Culture, not Eastern culture, the relation is there only because it was created by our own scientists as a tribute to the great philosophers of ancient times.

It's disputed whether four Elements (actually 5 but that's another dodgy conversation topic) are Greek or Indian. The Greek Elements are sometimes called Essenses. That would mean that both sets of 5 elements are from Asia. Wood, Earth, Metal, Water and Fire are from Chinese Taoism but are popular to a degree in Japan.

The Greeks had an idea called "atoms" which are really what the periodic table elements are.

As well as states of matter, the four elements are associated with the four Humors and the four seasons. I had a useful diagram in my history book when I did Medicine through history at school but I can't be bothered to find a version of it on the internet or scan in my book.

The fifth element that goes with Earth, Fire, Air and Water has been called Void, Ether, Quintessense (literally, the fith element) and Akasha by various people. It can have the meaning of Space, Sky/Heaven or the material of the soul.

Most of the Greek works we have only exist because they were preserved by Arabic scholars. Large amounts of modern science is based of eastern culture. Many of the Enlightenment's Natural Philosophers were into Orientalism. The exchange of knowledge between Asia and Europe throughout history is a lot greater than most people will tell you.

[Swivelguy]

The fire/plasma connection is a bit of a stretch.

Hm? The visible light emissions of fire are due to the existence of a plasma.

The only issue I see is that you might define the noun 'fire' to refer to something immaterial, sort of like the noun 'festival,' for lack of a better example. If you don't consider fire to be matter, then it can't be a plasma.

I thought the classical elements were Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind anyway.

[Norenche]

Isn't "plastic" (i.e. Solids which flow slowly) also considered a state of matter sometimes?

I think Solids can't flow, only gas and liquid can flow. Also boiling is a gas, because it's water in gas state. Every liquid has its boiling pressure (I don't know if it's called like that in English, I studied that in spanish) and when it's reacher there's an equilibrium between the liquid and the gas.

Also, like Barbarianpixie pointed, glass is a solid, it have an amorphous structure of SiO2 with some metallic ions in it. Also it's true that if something is cinetycally stable the reaction or the change of fase doesn't happen (yes, it means that if something es very slow it doesn't happen because it needs a lot of energy to happen)

[Illiterate Scribe]

If we're going by element = state of matter, you can't get cooler (I apologise for the horrific pun) than a Bose-Einstein Condensate Elemental.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose-einstein_condensate

[SandroTheMaster]

If I'm not wrong, there is even another state after the Bose-Einstein, or before... but I can't recall.

And thus, I think there is no coincidence. It is just another interpretation. After all, what is science if not a proved interpretation, but still an interpretation as it can fall apart at any second as soon as exceptions are discovered and then delved into, discovering then that they aren't exceptions.

BTW, it is fun to use in the campaign setting the elements as "states", and it is likely that mages (who could arguably be more advanced than modern man in natural science) would refer them as this.

[Xenon]

sonic elementals! nothing can resist their power! bwahahaha!

ahem. its a cool joke, and a nice concept... but basicly it comes down to how a GM says his world works. the giant is the 'GM' of his story, so whatever way he rules on the matter is therefore correct.

[ReaganStorme]

I thought the classical elements were Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind anyway.

Don't forget Heart... "Go Captain Planet!" :smallbiggrin:

[martyboy74]

Don't forget Heart... "Go Captain Planet!" :smallbiggrin:
I use my ring to...um...be happy!:smallconfused:

[Eldan]

You shouldn't forget that DnD has much more than just four elements...

Positive

Mineral - Steam - Lightning - Radiance

Earth - Ooze- Water - Ice - Air - Smoke- Fire - Magma

Dust - Salt - Vacuum - Ash

Negative

Also, different campaign settings have different element(al)s.

(And yes, I have various Planescape Maps hanging next to my computer over my desk)

[Demented]

Heck, if it's a noun, you can make an elemental out of it.

"Oh gods, look out, it's a book elemental!"

Then again, maybe I'm thinking of golems.

[Tolkien_Freak]

Like cloth golems from Erfworld.

State-of-matter-elementals - Infinitely-Dense-Matter Elemental (i.e. Black Hole Elemental).


Mineral - Steam - Lightning - Radiance

Earth - Ooze- Water - Ice - Air - Smoke- Fire - Magma

Dust - Salt - Vacuum - Ash

Technically, you could improve this by reclassifying like this:

Earth - Mineral, Salt, Dust/Ash (how is that 2?)
Water - Ooze, Ice
Air - Steam, Smoke
Fire - Lightning, Radiance, Magma
Vacuum

And it would be equally, if not more, legitimate.

[Molehill]

Closet_Skeleton, I believe the greek concept of atoms still held to the four element idea. Each element had a platonic solic associated with it. Earth was cubes, which can be stacked tightly. Fire was pyramids, because they're pointy and sharp, water was a sphere because it flows and rolls, and air was a dodecahedron, I'm not sure why. The atoms were supposed to be of that shape.

Also, if this is useful, I remember hearing that some greeks defined the atoms according to an axis of heat and moisture.

Air is hot and wet
Water is cold and wet
Fire is hot and dry
Earth is cold and dry
I think ether was all four at once (maybe)

Finally, regarding solid vs. liquid flowing, I remember doing the experiment in elementary school with what they called non-neutonians solids (or maybe it w as liquids). It was doughy and would flow like a gummy liquid if you let it alone, but if you put a lot of force into it at once it would resist like a solid. It was cool.

[Tolkien_Freak]

Actually, only one Greek ever thought up atoms (Demokritos), and he was ignored. Mostly, they held to Empedokles' 4-elements thing without the concept of atoms. (Don't know how exactly.)


Also, what is a sort of gel-thing (I guess like putty) when compared to Solid/Liquid?

[Eldan]

About the organisation of the elements above: It's actually a globe. And it's the one and only cosmology in DnD, most of those ignorant primes just don't know anything about most of those elements :smallwink:

On the "equator" there are the four main elements: Fire, Earth, Water and Air.
Where they meet are the paraelements: Fire and Earth create Magma, Earth and Water create Ooze, Water and Air create Ice and Air and Water create Smoke.
On the "north pole" is the Postive Energy Plane and on the "south pole" is the negative energy.
Between the Positive and the elements lie the positive quasielements: the Plane of Radiance between Fire and Positive Energy, The Plane of Minerals between Earth and Positive, steam between Water and Positiv and Lightning between Air and Positive.
Between the Negative and the elements lie the negative quasielements. Fire becomes Ash, Earth becomes Dust, Water becomes Salt and finally Air becomes Vacuum.
All nicely defined and a wonderful cosmology. Also nice to have standing on yoru desk.

[Tarvok]

About the organisation of the elements above: It's actually a globe. And it's the one and only cosmology in DnD, most of those ignorant primes just don't know anything about most of those elements :smallwink:

On the "equator" there are the four main elements: Fire, Earth, Water and Air.
Where they meet are the paraelemhttp://www.giantitp.com/forums/images/smilies/smallstick/smallsmile.gifents: Fire and Earth create Magma, Earth and Water create Ooze, Water and Air create Ice and Air and Water create Smoke.
On the "north pole" is the Postive Energy Plane and on the "south pole" is the negative energy.

Hee! There's just something beautiful about internally consistant systems that have no relation to reality at all! :smallsmile:

One of these days I'm going to have to publish my "elementalist/dimensionalist synthesis" somewhere permanent. It posits a different "planear" configuration in which planeshifting is actually dimension shifting, in which the multiverse is defined by no less than nine dimensions: the three directional dimensions (length, width, height), the two ethical dimensions (Law-Chaos and Good-Evil), and the three elemental dimensions (earth-air, fire-water, and ether-mirror). A massive number of fantasy-type settings can be defined according to this system, by swaping dimensions around.

As to greek elementalism, in their model of the universe, they fit into the greek conception of a universe that was composed of spheres. From in to out, they were: earth, water, air, fire, moon, <order?>mercury, venus, sun, mars</order?>, jupiter, saturn, and the final stellar sphere. Maybe Neptune was in there somewhere; I don't remember whether you need a telescope to see that or not.

[Eldan]

If I remember correctly, the planet's spheres were actually aligned according to their proximity to earth, not the sun, so it would be:
Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercur, Sun, Jupiter, Saturn. Everything else was not visible back then. Though I'm not sure about anything farther out than Venus. And they would most likely have the greek names Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Helios, Zeus(What's the greek name for the moon, Luna is Latin? And who is Saturn supposed to be, I don't even know that god.)

[brionl]

You forgot the demi-hemi-semi-elemental plane of Anvils.
It's in between earth and fire and has connections to both the positive & negative energy planes. Where do you think all those anvils come from in cartoons?

[Eldan]

Must be hard to find, if no one in planescape ever wrote about it :smallwink:
But I guess it's connected to hammerspace, where huge blunt objects out of nothing come from, and that is a demiplane on the Astral, which sometimes spawns portals behind the backs of cartoon animals and female manga characters. :smallbiggrin:
(I love Planescape. You can put in everything you like)

[kimana]

If I remember correctly, the planet's spheres were actually aligned according to their proximity to earth, not the sun, so it would be:
Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercur, Sun, Jupiter, Saturn. Everything else was not visible back then. Though I'm not sure about anything farther out than Venus. And they would most likely have the greek names Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Helios, Zeus(What's the greek name for the moon, Luna is Latin? And who is Saturn supposed to be, I don't even know that god.)
The moon was equated for the Greeks with Selene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selene), later Artemis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis) (http://www.pantheon.org also has a lot of good info on mythology, but wikipedia was handier) ... the first of which lends her name (http://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A3%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%AE%CE%BD%CE%B7) to the Modern Greek term for the moon "Σελήνη" (i hope unicode doesn't make this board cry!)
Pretty much how I remember it (from my ancient astronomy class), and echoed by wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric#Ptolemaic_system):
Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn

Bonus info...this led to our weekday names (http://www.friesian.com/week.htm)(about halfway down there is a black and red diagram, the paragraph next to that explains)...though most of those are from Thor (hey, it's Thursday! :durkon:) and his buddies, but are assigned mostly matching spheres of influence IIRC.

More fun stuff on the 4 "elements" and the 7 "planets": Wikipedia on classical elements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_elements#Classical_elements_in_Greece) ...the same on planets, some fun stuff under "classical planets" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planets_in_astrology)... A good page on the Greek elements, but it loads slowly (http://www.friesian.com/elements.htm)

Oh, ancient astronomy was a splendid class...shape I don't still have my celestial sphere... :vaarsuvius:

oh and i think you want Cronus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronus)for Saturn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_%28mythology%29)in the Greek...

[Silverlocke980]

One intriguing thing (and it shows I used to be on an Academic Team in high school, doesn't it?) is that each element was thought of by a different philosopher. Though I can't name names, four different philosophers of ancient Greece argued about which element of the four we know today was the "one" element of the universe: one argued fire, stating man's spirit and heart was hot; one argued water, stating man's blood was the source of his life; one argued earth, the solidity of flesh and bone; the last argued air, the breath that man took each second of his life. The four never resolved their disagreement, but a fifth philosopher, looking over their arguments later, resolved that all of them were correct: bone and flesh needed air to live, blood needed bone and flesh to inhabit, and spirit was needed to tell it all where to go.

And that's how we got a four element system. Ain't life strange?

[Lord of the Helms]

I've seen that so-called rebuttal before. I'm not saying that I believe that glass is really a liquid, but I do claim that that rebuttal is a nonsensical load of poorly-defended assertions. After all, if something happens very slowly (http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml), it must not happen at all! No one can see the pitch flowing, so it must obviously be a solid!

Yep, it's bollocks. Glass is special in that it has no clear transition between its states. You cannot clearly definite when it is liquid and when it is solid unlike with most other substances, because it gradually turns softer and more liquid the warmer it gets (or the other way round, becoming more solid the cooler it gets) rather than abrubtly changing at a specific temperature. It doesn't become perfectly solid prior to 0°K either, but indeed still retains qualities of a liquid.

Plastics are an entirely different thing altogether, the behavior of polymeres can hardly be compared to that of elements. Most of them decompose/react rather than melt or boil.

[Erk]

Lord of the Helms, actually that is bollocks :elan:. This page (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/Glass/glass.html) describes it better than I could in my illness-addled state, but glass has a well-defined solid state, it is not a liquid any more than ice is. It is just not a uniform crystal. Its transition to a liquid state is measurable as a 2nd order reaction.

"Plastic" doesn't always refer to a polymer. "Plastic" in terms of phase properties means a semisolid that is nonrigid and can assume new forms. In polymer terms, "plastic" is so undefined it really has no meaning in terms of physical state, although the vernacular has us assume a solid.

I did a lot of cool research on phase transitions back in 3rd year but even when I am not sick I hardly remember any of it :(

[Closet_Skeleton]

Air is hot and wet
Water is cold and wet
Fire is hot and dry
Earth is cold and dry
I think ether was all four at once (maybe)

That's part of the four seasons association. Summer is hot, Winter is Cold, Spring is wet, Autumn is dry or something.

Basically if there's four or five of them you can put them into a giant set of squares full of how they're linked.

[kabbes]

Everybody knows that the four elements are: wood, bakelite, iron and beer.

[Snake-Aes]

Physically speaking, certain things like glass and plastic exhibit characteristics of liquids over long periods of time, but can be utilized as solids in the short-term. I don't think they consider it an entirely different form of element though, just a sort of "odd case". In reality, most things aren't "pure solid" or "pure liquid", just molecules that have a different ammount of space between them that we then categorize by their behavior.

Consider this: Is boiling water gaseous, or liquid?

I guess that doesn't really answer your question...but we're talking about a theoretical coorilation anyway, so I didn't expect to answer it at all. ^^;I couldn't resist this one. Boiling water is liquid. While the latent energy(I don't know how it's called in english, a literal translation from my language brings "latent heat") isn't broken, it will remain liquid, the gas is the consequent vapour formed after it breaks.

[kialos]

btw: plasma Isn't the forth State of matter YET. Lots of Sicentists are arguing about it and their undecided... all Plasma is, is Super heated Gas... it does change density... but they haven't decided anything yet...

[Illiterate Scribe]

btw: plasma Isn't the forth State of matter YET. Lots of Sicentists are arguing about it and their undecided... all Plasma is, is Super heated Gas... it does change density... but they haven't decided anything yet...

Plasma is different - the electrons are dissociated. And there are about twenty other exotic, but still very real and different, other states of matter.

Examples would include Bose-Einstein Condensates (supercooled matter whose uncertainty is bigger than the sample size), degenerate matter (proto-black hole stuff) and supercritical fluids (both gases and liquids).

[Tolkien_Freak]

Don't forget superfluids (both liquid and solid) and infinitely dense matter (actual black holes).

And you could also say that boiling water is BOTH a liquid and a gas. Some of it is a gas, and some of it is still a liquid.

Ah, I love science!

[Draz74]

Physically speaking, certain things like glass and plastic exhibit characteristics of liquids over long periods of time, but can be utilized as solids in the short-term. I don't think they consider it an entirely different form of element though, just a sort of "odd case". In reality, most things aren't "pure solid" or "pure liquid", just molecules that have a different ammount of space between them that we then categorize by their behavior.

Consider this: Is boiling water gaseous, or liquid?

I guess that doesn't really answer your question...but we're talking about a theoretical coorilation anyway, so I didn't expect to answer it at all. ^^;

Practically any homogenous non-crystallic solid will act like a liquid given enoug time. Silly putty does it quickly. Glass does it at a medium rate (on a geologic scale). A lump of iron will do it too, much more slowly than glass.