Atomic Theory – 101…

Quarks of Confusion…

Once again were going to start with the basics of a subject and attempt to build up some general knowledge before hitting the more advanced, and definitely more perplexing ideas. This week I’ve decided to turn my attention to the mystifying world of physics and atomic theory.

In the beginning…

Like a lot of ideas and notions, atomic theory started way back in the cradle of civilization that was Ancient Greece. During the rise of Greek civilization a group of nosey intellectuals called philosophers roamed the streets in the pursuit of knowledge and true understanding. They rambled around Athens and the Peloponnese questioning those they met and often asked frustrating questions like “what is beauty”, or “what is good, and why is it good.” The ancient philosophers were not just moralists, political theorists and ethicists; they were essentially the world’s first scientists. Their quest was to uncover the truth of how things worked and why things were so. Science and philosophy has always moved hand in hand, Aristotelian physics was once regarded as the primo universal theory before Galileo debunked it by dropping various items off the Tower of Pisa. Again Aristotle is viewed as the first real biologist/ecologist of the modern world. Likewise, atomic theory also started with a group of Greek philosophers called the Atomists.

The Atomists…

Many ancient philosophers believed that the universe consisted of two primary parts, these being ‘matter’ and ‘void’. Democritus suggestedthat ‘matter’ was made up of indivisible particles that he called atoms. This comes from the Greek word atomos which literally means ‘uncuttable’ or indivisible. The Atomist theory was later revived by Epicurus. His follower Lucretius wrote a seminal work on early atomic theory entitled On the nature of things. In his work Lucretius attempted to interconnect everyday life, physics and ethics with his own notion of atomic theory. Lucretius argued that the whole universe was made up of atoms and void. Lucretius makes several striking observationsthroughout his work. One particularly striking image is Lucretius’ description of dust particles moving through a ray of light.

Bright light, bright light!

Atomic theory was later evolved by Islamic philosophers in the 11th century. In this period of Islamic enlightenment, Asharite philosophers suggested that the atom was the only eternal and perpetual particle in the universe, everything else was therefore subject to change and decay. The Asharite philosophers were also the first to suggest that the atom was potentially divisible and that there was also a possibility of particles smaller than the traditional atom.

More on the development of atomic theory in the week….

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