Empedocles and his 'four elements' hypothesis
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. He was famous because of his great theory and ideas which he claimed.
He was one of the first to claim that all over the world is made with four elements which is Water, Fire, Air and Earth. This was very developed and revolutionizing theory to people who lived at that time which means 490~430 B.C.
Hello ladies and gentlemen. I'm Yoon Sung Kye in class 19 and my region is West. Do you know who is Empedocles? He is from island Sicily in Greece. He was philosopher of Greece and he was also scientist. Do you know why is he famous? I think that it is because of his famous theory "Four elements theory". 4 elements theory is theory which says that all of the Earth is made of basic four elements ; water, fire, air and earth. And this is topic which I will talk about. I believe that this topic is important because ancient knowledge is important. Lots of experts still study about ancient science. It's because, first, many ancient topics still have not been solved. Second, modern science comes from ancient science. Third, it shows our past like pages of book.
First, I'm going to talk about Empedocles. As I told in the introduction, he is famous scientist from Sicily in Greece. He has famous theory such as Four Elements Theory and he proved that air exist by experiment. Because of these reasons and great theory, people respected him a lot and his theory didn't change for 2000 years. However, Empedocles has very mysterious death. He was melted inside active volcano, Etna. There are lots of hypothesis such as he was very curious about volcano, so he jumped in or, he wanted to be real god by jumping into hot volcano.
Second, I want to talk about Four elements theory and it's problem. Four elements theory is a theory that says world is made of basic four elements;water, fire, air and earth. Empedocles claimed this and it was believed for 2000 years. However, Aristotle changed the theory and he add own characteristic of each elements water= wet,cold fire=dry,warm air=wet,hot earth=dry,cold. However, this trustful 4 elements theory had problem too. It was on fire. As you know fire cannot exist without air. However, four elements have to be alone. Nobody noticed this problem even Aristotle.
Last, I want to talk about Empedocles's another famous experiment which he noticed that air exist. Experiment was easy and also we could see this a lot in typical life. But only Empedocles had a question about this.He made a tube with ball which has holes below and he put it in the water. After water go into the ball, he put that out of the bucket and water was keep coming. However, when he put hand on the tube the water stopped to come out. Result of this simple but awesome experiment was hypothesis that something invisible is there which is air. It was lot before Pristly find out oxygen and carbon dioxide which is in the air in 1774. It was awesome discovery.
In conclusion, I want to say that Empedocles is great scientist which made background of modern science. By invention of four elements theory and finding air made lots of other scientist to develop his theory and these development made present world. I was happy to get answer of my question during preparing presentation.
