The Fifth Element | Yesterday & Today

[librarius_qui]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

GREEK

Earth
Water
Air
Fire
& 5: AEther (?!)

CHINESE (WU XING)
(most different version ...)

Water
Metal
Fire
Wood
& 5: Earth


... What's AEther?! :crash:


(Any thoughts? Any bibliography?)


Lq.~

[Niamh]

It's linked to Alchemy as far as i'm aware, so may have some associations with metal and other chemical componds etc.

[BienvenuJDC]

I think the Chinese missed some facts...
Earth = Metal (ore is from earth)
Earth = Wood (after decomposition)
They missed Air altogether...

AEther might be a variation of Ether as is referred in one religious hymn as the ether plain.

According to Webster http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ether (Webster - Ether)
ether
Pronunciation:
\ˈē-thər\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Latin aether, from Greek aithēr, from aithein to ignite, blaze; akin to Old English ād pyre — more at edify
Date:
14th century

1 a: the rarefied element formerly believed to fill the upper regions of space b: the upper regions of space : heavens

2 also ae·ther : a medium that in the wave theory of light permeates all space and transmits transverse waves b: airwaves

3 a: a light volatile flammable liquid C4H10O used chiefly as a solvent and especially formerly as an anesthetic b: any of a class of organic compounds characterized by an oxygen atom attached to two carbon atoms

Consider that a light from the Upper Regions of the Heavens would probably have been considered to be something Spiritual since they did not understand many scientific phenomenons. Therefore my guess would be Spirit.

AEther = Spirit/Life
This coincides with the Movie too!!

[Sapphire]

AEther is all which is not the other 4 :p

Everything you can not explain, anything which stays a mystery... that is aether :) I have no bibliography to "proof" this statement though :angel:

[Niamh]

You hit on something there Bien. When people speak of the Aether or Ether a lot these days they are refering to the heavens, the spirit world and the energy in the air that surounds us. Maybe the fifth element is all that is not of this world. Maybe in greek mythology th Fifth Element was in reference to the gods and all that makes them different to mortals. who knows...

[librarius_qui]

I think the Chinese missed some facts...
Earth = Metal (ore is from earth)
Earth = Wood (after decomposition)
They missed Air altogether...



I don't think they missed air. I think that they might think air not as an element, for simple reasons. Chinese people is a simple people, or their thought carries something ... different from (me) er .. "Western", lets say.



You hit on something there Bien. When people speak of the Aether or Ether a lot these days they are refering to the heavens, the spirit world and the energy in the air that surounds us. Maybe the fifth element is all that is not of this world. Maybe in greek mythology th Fifth Element was in reference to the gods and all that makes them different to mortals. who knows...

This is interesting.

It makes me think of the "invisible world" or the world/place/non-place(?)/.. of invisible things/beings.

(It's how I understand "spirit", in a way.)

[librarius_qui]

1. there are no invisible *things* ... I think; there are only invisible beings

2. spirit may be understood as (an) invisible "thing"; but there's one other way I think about it, which is spirit as word/speech (meaning)


I think it'd be interesting to add these two thoughts~



[
I think the Chinese missed some facts...
Earth = Metal (ore is from earth)
Earth = Wood (after decomposition)
They missed Air altogether...



Also, if we think ..

Water
Metal
Fire
Wood

(& 5: Earth)

there's a logic in these elements: wood is destroyed by fire; fire serves to forge metal; metal sinks in water; water doesn't "eat" wood ...

Maybe the fifth element is a bad translation (which happens frequently, though it's a hypothesis here ...) of land or ground. If not, well, then it might be dust. We need someone who knows Chinese, here, to tell us :D ]

[pagebypage]

The ether of the 19th century posited to perpetuate waves in a vacuum is not the same aether as postulated in ancient Greek science.

There were four elements originally in Greek thought: earth, water, air, and fire.

Aristotle extended the list to five when he added aether. His reasoning was that the celestial bodies, being perfect, must be made of an element other than that found on earth. Each element has its natural place: earth is at the center, followed by water, then air, then fire, and finally aether. This schema is how he explained motion. When each element is outside its natural place it will have an innate tendency requiring no external cause to return to that place. Thus solids sink in water, air bubbles up in water, fire rises in air. The heavenly bodies of aether are perpetually moving in a perfect circle.