Fire Particles

Each particle, or corpuscle, of fire is a regular tetrahedron (four-sided geometrical solid).  This is what fire particles look like, according to Plato’s description in the Timaeus. In the center is the fire-particle Plato describes at 54e, with 6 scalene triangles making up each equilateral face of the tetrahedron. On the left is a simpler “isotope” with 2 scalene triangles per face; on the right is a more complex “isotope” with 8 scalene triangles per face.

Image of fireparticles

Image taken from Friedländer, Plato, vol. 1, An Introduction.


Return to Timaeus lecture.

  Return to the PHIL 320 Home Page


Copyright © 2002, S. Marc Cohen