The drop in energy output initially causes the stellar core to contract simultaneously the star's outer layers balloon to form a bloated monstrosity known as a red giant. As supplies of hydrogen are exhausted, the star begins to sputter to a halt.
Stars ordinarily run on hydrogen, converting it, via nuclear fusion, into helium, with a massive release of energy. The demise of stars is ultimately the result of depleted fuel. While the matter of the universe is believed to have been dispersed some 14bn years ago by the Big Bang, the elements in our segment are the result of a secondary boom. Our solar system is reconstituted from the remains of an ancient supernova. Their presence indicates that the sun is at least a second-generation star. Our sun, though it consists primarily of hydrogen and helium, contains a smattering of heavier elements: oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, silicon, magnesium, neon, iron, and sulphur. This seems economically shortsighted, since our personal elements - except for hydrogen - are so exceptionally rare. Boil us down to our elemental constituents and we're worth about $4.50, according to one estimate, and some cynics price us out at less than a dollar.
4 elements meaning plus#
In shaming contrast, human beings are cobbled together from a mere 30 - predominately oxygen (65%), carbon (18 %), hydrogen (10 %) and nitrogen (3 %), plus bit players such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur. Our lives depend on the residual 1%.Ī diamond consists of one element table salt, two sugar, three. All the rest, from the carbon so integral to organic molecules to the copper that edged us out of the Stone Age, the iron that fuelled the Industrial Revolution and the silicon that sent us into cyberspace, are chemical rarities. Of all the known elements, the universe consists almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, which respectively constitute about 90% and 9%. Though, as elements go, ours are stunningly atypical. While the nature of our psychological elements is open to debate, chemically speaking, we know what we're made of. In Carl Jung's Psychological Types, published in 1921, four basic personality functions - feeling, thinking, intuition, and sensation (each with introverted or extroverted aspects) - echo water, air, fire, and earth. Psychological theory continued to reflect ancient Greek constructs, however.
Though accepted as dogma in western medicine well into the 17th century, the humours had vanished from medicine by the 20th. High blood engendered a sanguine temperament, and produced amorous, cheerful people - Falstaff with a touch of Santa Claus and phlegm made for timorous types, like Uriah Heep. Elevated yellow bile rendered its possessor choleric, violent and vengeful - the sort of disposition that led John McEnroe to throw his tennis racket. An individual high in black bile was of melancholic disposition, the human equivalent of Eeyore. One's dominant humour was believed to determine one's personality type. These were phlegm, associated with the element water blood, associated with air yellow bile, with fire and black bile, with earth. The idea of the elements as determinants of behaviour was an outgrowth of the theory of the four essential body fluids, or humors, proposed by Hippocrates. Personality study dates back at least to the ancient Greeks, whose four elements were not only the fundamental substances of matter, but also the raw material of human nature. Such traits allow psychologists to categorise our personalities. Humans share many behavioural, emotional and cognitive traits which predict, more or less, how we're likely to learn, adapt to changing environments and interact in social situations. What makes us all the intelligent, insightful and delightful people we hope we are is a dauntingly complex mix of genetic, physiological, psychological, evolutionary and environmental factors, melded in some unspecified fashion to make each of us unique. Knowing ourselves, much less our families, friends and neighbours, is a colossal endeavour, which explains why psychology is such an acrimonious discipline. Socrates's injunction "know thyself" is tougher than it sounds.