Unconventional Gas Reservoirs

6.4. Delinearized History of Characterization of Matter and Energy

Figure 6.1 shows Aristotle's model for four fundamental elements of matter. This is the oldest form of phase diagram that can be found in Europe. This figure is in effect a steady-state model. The elimination of the time function made the diagram appear perfectly symmetrical, which is the essence of Atomism. Democritus is indeed most often cited as the source of the atomic theory of matter, but there's a strong argument/likelihood that what he had in mind was a highly idealized notion, not anything based on actual material structure. For the Greeks, symmetry was believed to be good in itself and was largely achieved by geometric rearrangement of (usually) two-dimensional space. ...