The Discovery of the Atom Chapter 1: Aristotle and Democritus

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Long ago, the ancient Greeks had the most powerful civilization in the universe. And at the center of their magnificent civilization was the world's most famous scientist and philosopher, Aristotle.

One day, Aristotle (~350 B.C.E.) looked out at the world and saw the four great elements of nature: water, earth, air, and fire. Aristotle became convinced that these four elements made up everything he could see around him. And nobody dared to challenge him! Aristotle had the most brilliant mind in the entire world; anybody who said otherwise would be laughed at. So, for hundreds of years, all the ancient Greeks began to accept that our universe was made of water, earth, air, and fire.

Did we say all the Greeks? Well, that's not true. One Greek, Democritus, disagreed with Aristotle. Democritus (~460 BCE) was actually born 100 years before Aristotle! But nobody thought that Democritus was clever, let alone as clever as Aristotle was, and so everybody ignored his teachings. Democritus argued that everything, even water, earth, air, and fire, are made of basic parts, and that water, earth, air, and fire are not the buildings blocks of our world.

Democritus said that each object has a unique basic part. For example, wood has a "wood basic part", fur has a "fur basic part", stones have "stone basic parts" and so on. When millions and millions of these basic parts are put together, an object forms. So, millions and millions of "wood basic parts" might make a log, millions and millions of "fur basic parts" might make a coat, and millions and millions of "stone basic parts" might make a boulder.

The last part of Democritus' theory was that these basic parts could not be broken down into any smaller pieces. In other words, Democritus thought they were indivisible, and the Greek word for indivisible was atomos, so Democritus' theory came to be known as the theory of atomos.

But remember, no Greek listened to Democritus. In fact, for the next 2,000 years, everybody still believed that the world was made of water, earth, air, and fire. But that would all change in 1800 C.E. when a young British gentlemen by the name of John Dalton came to believe that Democritus just might be right.

To be continued in Chapter 2 ...