Man never ceases trying fo find answers
to everything existing around him. Scientists have left hardly
anything that they have not brought under scrutiny and analysis
in their laboratories. It is an endless and ancient human effort.
Water was a fascinating subject to the ancient
Greeks in particular and they studied it intensely. They concluded
that water, earth, fire and air were the four basic elements from
which all compound substances were derived. They believed that
the fusion of two or more of the above created other known compounds.
Today we know definitely that water itself is not an element but a compound made up of hydrogen and oxygen. An element is something that cannot be broken up or disunited. The process of separating the components of water is known as electrolysis, achieved by placing a number of drops of acid in pure water and conducting an electric current through it. The current breaks up the unity of the compounds o that the hydrogen separates from the oxygen. Why the acid? Because pure water neutralized the electric current and voids it. The formula for water, H20, is a chemical designation meaning two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen. Now science teaches us that there are 92 elements in nature instead of the four that the ancient Greeks believed existed. Furthermore we also now know for a certainty that even the other substances they thought they were elements are not elements at all but compounds.