Aether classical element Wikipedia. According to ancient and medieval science, aether Greek aithr1, also spelled ther or ether, also called quintessence, is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere. The concept of aether was used in several theories to explain several natural phenomena, such as the traveling of light and gravity. In the late 1. 9th century, physicists postulated that aether permeated all throughout space, providing a medium through which light could travel in a vacuum, but evidence for the presence of such a medium was not found in the MichelsonMorley experiment, and this result has been interpreted as meaning that no such luminiferous aether exists. Mythological originseditThe word aithr in Homeric Greek means pure, fresh air or clear sky. In Greek mythology, it was thought to be the pure essence that the gods breathed, filling the space where they lived, analogous to the air breathed by mortals. It is also personified as a deity, Aether, the son of Erebus and Nyx in traditional Greek mythology. Aether is related to to incinerate,6 and intransitive to burn, to shine related is the name Aithiopes Ethiopians see Aethiopia, meaning people with a burnt black visage. Fifth elementedit. Medieval concept of the cosmos. The innermost spheres are the terrestrial spheres, while the outer are made of aether and contain the celestial bodies. In Platos Timaeus 5. Plato mentions that there is the most translucent kind which is called by the name of aether. Aristotle, who had been Platos student at the Akademia, agreed on this point with his former mentor, emphasizing additionally that fire sometimes has been mistaken for aether. However, in his Book On the Heavens he introduced a new first element to the system of the classical elements of Ionianphilosophy. He noted that the four terrestrial classical elements were subject to change and naturally moved linearly. Vibrations And Waves Ap French Pdf' title='Vibrations And Waves Ap French Pdf' />Vol. No. 3, May, 2004. Mathematical and Natural Sciences. Study on Bilinear Scheme and Application to Threedimensional Convective Equation Itaru Hataue and Yosuke. At least five highly contaminated Superfund sites in the Houston area were deluged by floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey, the AP reported on Saturday, and. The first element however, located in the celestial regions and heavenly bodies, moved circularly and had none of the qualities the terrestrial classical elements had. It was neither hot nor cold, neither wet nor dry. With this addition the system of elements was extended to five and later commentators started referring to the new first one as the fifth and also called it aether, a word that Aristotle had not used. Aether did not follow Aristotelian physics either. Aether was also incapable of motion of quality or motion of quantity. Aether was only capable of local motion. Aether naturally moved in circles, and had no contrary, or unnatural, motion. Aristotle also noted that crystalline spheres made of aether held the celestial bodies. The idea of crystalline spheres and natural circular motion of aether led to Aristotles explanation of the observed orbits of stars and planets in perfectly circular motion in crystalline aether. Medieval scholastic philosophers granted aether changes of density, in which the bodies of the planets were considered to be more dense than the medium which filled the rest of the universe. Robert Fludd stated that the aether was of the character that it was subtler than light. Fludd cites the 3rd century view of Plotinus, concerning the aether as penetrative and non material. See also Arche. QuintessenceeditQuintessence is the Latinate name of the fifth element used by medieval alchemists for a medium similar or identical to that thought to make up the heavenly bodies. It was noted that there was very little presence of quintessence within the terrestrial sphere. Due to the low presence of quintessence, earth could be affected by what takes place within the heavenly bodies. This theory was developed in the 1. The testament of Lullius, attributed to Ramon Llull. The use of quintessence became popular within medieval alchemy. Quintessence stemmed from the medieval elemental system, which consisted of the four classical elements, and aether, or quintessence, in addition to two chemical elements representing metals sulphur, the stone which burns, which characterized the principle of combustibility, and mercury, which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties. Return To Wonderland Platinum Edition. This elemental system spread rapidly throughout all of Europe and became popular with alchemists, especially in medicinal alchemy. Medicinal alchemy then sought to isolate quintessence and incorporate it within medicine and elixirs. Due to quintessences pure and heavenly quality, it was thought that through consumption one may rid oneself of any impurities or illnesses. In The book of Quintessence, a 1. English translation of a continental text, quintessence was used as a medicine for many of mans illnesses. A process given for the creation of quintessence is distillation of alcohol seven times. Over the years, the term quintessence has become synonymous with elixirs, medicinal alchemy, and the philosophers stone itself. With the 1. 8th century physics developments physical models known as aether theories made use of a similar concept for the explanation of the propagation of electromagnetic and gravitational forces. As early as the 1. Newton used the idea of aether to help match observations to strict mechanical rules of his physics. However, the early modern aether had little in common with the aether of classical elements from which the name was borrowed. These aether theories are considered to be scientifically obsolete, as the development of special relativity showed that Maxwells equations do not require the aether for the transmission of these forces. However, Einstein himself noted that his own model which replaced these theories could itself be thought of as an aether, as it implied that the empty space between objects had its own physical properties. Despite the early modern aether models being superseded by general relativity, occasionally some physicists have attempted to reintroduce the concept of aether in an attempt to address perceived deficiencies in current physical models. One proposed model of dark energy has been named quintessence by its proponents, in honor of the classical element. This idea relates to the hypothecial form of dark energy postulated as an explanation of observations of an accelerating universe. It has also been called a fifth fundamental force. Aether and lighteditThe motion of light was a long standing investigation in physics for hundreds of years before the 2. The use of aether to describe this motion was popular during the 1. Johann Bernoulli, who was recognized in 1. French Academy. In his theory, all space is permeated by aether containing excessively small whirlpools. These whirlpools allow for aether to have a certain elasticity, transmitting vibrations from the corpuscular packets of light as they travel through. This theory of luminiferous aether would influence the wave theory of light proposed by Christiaan Huygens, in which light traveled in the form of longitudinal waves via an omnipresent, perfectly elastic medium having zero density, called aether. At the time, it was thought that in order for light to travel through a vacuum, there must have been a medium filling the void through which it could propagate, as sound through air or ripples in a pool. Later, when it was proved that the nature of light wave is transverse instead of longitudinal, Huygens theory was replaced by subsequent theories proposed by Maxwell, Einstein and de Broglie, which rejected the existence and necessity of aether to explain the various optical phenomena. These theories were supported by the results of the MichelsonMorley experiment in which evidence for the motion of aether was conclusively absent. The results of the experiment influenced many physicists of the time and contributed to the eventual development of Einsteins theory of special relativity.