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The Ideas of the Ancient Greeks on the Atom
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The Ideas of the Ancient Greeks on the Atom
Democritus of Abdera (460 - 370 B.C.)
Leucippus of Miletus (c.500 B.C.)
stated that everything is made up of
four eternal and unchanging kinds of matter, fire, air (all gases), water (all liquids and metals)
and earth (all solids).
He believed that everything in the universe is made up of the four elements, air, fire, water, and earth. He stated that believing in atoms would mean putting restriction on the gods, who have the power to divide elements smaller than the atom.
Greek scholars who believed that matter could be divided into tiny particles until such point where it can no longer be divided anymore. They became the first proponents of the atomic theory.
Their early ideas on atoms are summarized below.
Aristotle
1. All matter is made up of tiny, indivisible particles called atoms, which come from the Greek word atomos meaning uncuttable. The atoms are indestructible, impenetrable, and unchangeable.
2. The atoms make up the universe as they are continuously moving in a “void” that surrounds them, repelling each other when they collide, or combining into clusters.
3. Atoms are completely solid which means that there is no void or empty space inside that will make them prone to disintegration or destruction.
4. Atoms are homogeneous in nature. They have no internal structures.
5. Atoms come in different shapes and sizes.
Empedocles
Ideas that served as arguments against atomism
further expanded Empedocles’ theory by saying each of the four kinds of matter is composed of geometrical solids (the “Platonic solids”) further divisible into triangles. When rearranged, these triangles could cause the apparent transformations between the four basic kinds of matter.
argued that there was an infinite number of elementary natural
substances in the form of infinitesimally small particles that combined to comprise the different things in the universe.