Fire & water

Hello. >> Hey, Yolish. >> Is it true that all matter, all the physical things in the world are made of just one ingredient? One thing? >> Basically, yes. Everything you see is made of atoms. >> Wait, everything? Coffee beans, trees, Alex, clear. >> Exactly. And every atom has three parts. Protons, neutrons, and electrons. >> So, how do we get from just atoms to so many different elements and things on the table? Because each element's atom has a different number of protons, neutrons, and electrons. And it's the number of protons that defines the element. But they're all still just atoms arranged slightly differently. >> Give me an example. Sure. Take carbon and oxygen. Carbon has six protons. Oxygen has eight protons. Even though both have protons, neutrons, and electrons, that difference makes them completely different elements. or hydrogen versus helium, one proton versus two protons, totally different elements, same atomic building blocks, just arranged differently. >> So, it's like the alphabets. The same 22 alphabets create everything, every word in the world. >> Exactly. That's a perfect analogy. So, let me ask you this. If you had to take all the 118 elements and put them into one of four categories, fire, water, wind, earth, could you do that? >> Sure. Fire, reactive energetic elements like oxygen. Water, elements that form liquids or compounds easily like oxygen in water. Earth, heavy solid metals like iron or gold. air gases like helium, nitrogen, neon. >> Is there any element that wouldn't fit into one of these four categories? >> Hydrogen. It behaves differently depending on the situation. Sometimes fire, sometimes water, sometimes air. >> Wait, isn't that the main ingredient of water? >> Yes, hydrogen is part of water, but it also has firelike energy and can behave like a gas, air. That's why it doesn't fit neatly into one category. >> Whoa, that's so interesting because the rabbis teach us that the hail in Egypt was a combination of fire and water. So you're saying that hydrogen water is fire and water because it has hydrogen. Exactly. Maybe the Torah was hinting at the hidden dual nature of matter itself, built right into creation. Maybe