Chemistry: A Volatile History Chemistry: A Volatile History Chemistry: A Volatile History is a 2010 BBC documentary on the history of chemistry presented by Jim Al-Khalili. It was nominated for the 2010 British Academy Television Awards in the category Specialist Factual. Only in the last 200 years have we known what an element is – a substance that cannot be broken down further by chemical reaction. The Ancient Greeks, with no way of breaking open substances, could only base their ideas of the elements on what they could see: Earth, Fire, Water and Air. In the 16th century alchemists were busy trying to turn
Tendency of the rate of profit to fall Tendency of the rate of profit to fall The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a hypothesis in economics and political economy, most famously expounded by Karl Marx in chapter 13 of "Capital, Volume III". Economists as diverse as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo and Stanley Jevons referred explicitly to the TRPF as an empirical phenomenon that needed to be explained, but they differed in the reasons they gave for why the TRPF might necessarily occur. In his 1857 "Grundrisse" manuscript, Marx called the TRPF "the most important law of political economy" and sought