Empedocles
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Transcript: Empedocles supposed that all material was composed of four fundamental substances, earth, air, fire and water, and that everything we see in nature was either these primordial substances alone or seen in combination. This ancient idea is the first signs of something that we would today recognize as the periodic table. The Greeks also imagined there was a fifth, ethereal element that corresponded to the outer Celestial Sphere: quintessence.
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