Two quite different conceptions of the substance called “air” are current in the world. One has prevailed from time immemorial. The other is wholly modern. One is the popular view, the other the scientific. Ancient philosophers regarded air as one of the four “elements” of which all things were supposed to be made. Average humanity, though it did not concern itself with philosophy, must have begun, almost as soon as it realized the existence of air at all, to think of it as something that, however it changed its state from hot to cold, dry to moist, pure to impure, was fundamentally uniform--a single entity. Certainly this idea is in full vigor today. The air that we breathe, supply to our …
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