Atomic Theory A theory of the structure and behavior of atoms has taken more than two millenia to evolve,

from the abstract musings of ancient Greek philosophers to the high-tech experiments of modern scientists. However, prior to the scientific revolution and the development of the scientific method starting in the 16th century, ideas about the atom were mainly speculative. It wasn't until the very end of the 19th century that technology became advanced enough to allow scientists a glimpse of the atom's constituent parts: the electron, nucleus, proton, and neutron. Greek Origins The idea that all matter is made up of tiny, indivisible particles, or atoms, is believed to have originated with the Greek philosopher Leucippus of Miletus and his student Democritus of Abdera in the 5th century B.C. (The word atom comes from the Greek word atomos, which means indivisible.) These thinkers held that, in addition to being too small to be seen, unchangeable, and indestructible, atoms were also completely solid, with no internal structure, and came in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes, which accounted for the different kinds of matter. Color, taste, and other intangible qualities were also thought to be composed of atoms. While the idea of the atom was supported by some later Greek philosophers, it was fiercely attacked by others, including Aristotle, who argued against the existence of such particles. During the Middle Ages in Europe, Roman Catholic theologians were heavily influenced by Aristotle's ideas, and so atomic philosophy was largely dismissed for centuries. However, the Greeks' conception of the atom survived, both in Aristotle's works (his arguments against) and in another classical work by the Roman author Lucretius, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), which was rediscovered in Europe at the start of the Renaissance. Modern Development Modern atomic theory is generally said to begin with John Dalton, an English chemist and meteorologist who in 1808 published a book on the atmosphere and the behavior of gases that was entitled A New System of Chemical Philosophy. Dalton's theory of atoms rested on four basic ideas: chemical elements were composed of atoms; the atoms of an element were identical in weight; the atoms of different elements had different weights; and atoms combined only in small whole-number ratios, such as 1:1, 1:2, 2:1, 2:3, to form compounds. Not all of these ideas were new; the Greeks had already introduced the idea that elements were composed of atoms and that atoms of different elements had different physical properties. Dalton's particular contribution, which distinguished his work from what had been done before, was his method for actually determining atomic weight. In an essay published in 1805, Dalton had included a list of atomic weights for 21 elements. Dalton was also the first to propose standard symbols for the elements. Subatomic Structure Dalton's work was mainly about the chemistry of atomshow they combined to form new compoundsrather than the physical, internal structure of atoms, although he never denied the possibility of atoms' having a substructure. Modern theories about the physical structure of atoms did not begin until 1897, with J. J. Thomson's discovery of the electron. Actually, what Thomson discovered was that cathode rays were streams of negatively charged particles with a mass about 1,000 times smaller than a hydrogen atom. He claimed that these particles, which he called corpuscles, were the things that atoms were made from. The term electron predated Thomson's discoverya few years earlier Irish physicist G. J. Stoney had proposed that electricity was made of negative particles called electrons, and scientists had adopted the word to refer to anything with an electric charge. However, Thomson, who was a physicist at Cambridge University, was the first to suggest that these particles were a building block of the atom. Thomson also tried to show how the electrons were situated in the atom. Since atoms were known to be electrically neutral, Thomson proposed (1904) a model in which the atom was a positively charged sphere studded with negatively charged electrons. It was called the plum-pudding model, since the electrons in the atom resembled the raisins in a plum pudding. This model did not survive unchallenged for long. In 1911, Ernest Rutherford's experiments with alpha rays led him to describe the atom as a small, heavy nucleus with electrons in orbit around it. This nuclear model of the atom became the basis for the one that is still accepted today. Bohr and Beyond

In 1913, Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who had studied under both Thomson and Rutherford, further refined the nuclear model by proposing that electrons moved only in restricted, successive orbital shells and that the outer, higher-energy orbits determined the chemical properties of the different elements. Furthermore, Bohr was able to explain the spectral lines of the different elements by suggesting that as electrons jumped from higher to lower orbits, they emitted energy in the form of light. In the 1920s, Bohr's theory became the basis for quantum mechanics, which explained in greater detail the complex structure and behavior of atoms. Protons and Neutrons Since Thomson's discovery of the electron in 1897, scientists had realized that an atom must contain a positive charge to counterbalance the electrons' negative charge. In 1919, as a byproduct of his experiments on the splitting of atomic nuclei, Rutherford discovered the proton, which constitutes the nucleus of a hydrogen atom. A proton carries a single positive electrical charge, and every atomic nucleus contains one or more protons. Although Rutherford proposed the existence of a neutral subatomic particle, the neutron, in 1920, the actual discovery was made by English physicist James Chadwick, a former student of Rutherford, in 1932.

Democritus Democritus (dimok'ritus) [key], c.460c.370 B.C., Greek philosopher of Abdera; pupil of Leucippus. His theory of the nature of the physical world was the most radical and scientific attempted up to his time. He avoided the abstractions of his predecessors, Anaxagoras (mind) and Empedocles (harmony and discord), by employing consistent mechanistic postulates that required no supernatural intervention. He held that all things were composed of atoms; these he asserted to be tiny particles, imperceptible to the senses, composed of exactly the same matter but different in size, shape, and weight. They were underived, indivisible, and indestructible. Democritus postulated the constant motion of atoms and, on this basis, explained the creation of worlds. He held that the whirling motion caused by the falling of atoms resulted in aggregationsthe heavier atoms forming the earth and the lighter ones the heavenly bodies. He taught that what the senses perceive as quality is merely the result of a specific quantitative distribution of atoms. Sense perception yields only confused knowledge, telling us merely how things affect us; thought alone can apprehend the nature of things. Democritus' ethics were moderately hedonistic, teaching that the true end of life is happiness achieved in inner tDemocritus of Abdera Life and Work

The Atomists is the last Presocratic school of thought. The most important figure is Democritus (c. 460-370 BC), the philosopher who actually developed the atomic theory. He was a pupil of Leucippus (fl. 450-420 BC) who probably initiated the theory. Both Leucippus and Democritus flourished in the city of Abdera. Democritus visited Athens, but he was disappointed for not finding support in his theories. Another important figure is Metrodorus of Chios.

The Atomic Theory

The Atomic Theory is based on the following principles:

(1) Matter consists of separate, partless, solid, eternal, immutable, invisible and intangible unit-particles which are physically and theoretically indivisible atoms (the uncuttable);

(2) Atoms differ in shape (A from B), position (Z from N) and order (AN from NA) but not in quality;

(3) Empty space or void is necessary for their movement;

(4) Perceptible change and plurality are the result of the transfer of momentum by the moving atoms and such transfer occurs only by contact and not by distinct action.

Atoms and Void

The theory of indivisible atoms should be regarded as a direct reply to Eleatic monism and in particular to Zenos argument of infinite divisibility. Contra the Eleatic absolute denial of non-being, the Atomists state that non-being exists as emptiness: what-is (to den) is the plenum of atoms, while what-is-not (to meden) is the emptiness of void (kenon). Emptiness can explain natural phenomena and physical plurality; what-is-not is in existence spatially as the fundamental prerequisite of physical motion.

Motion and Necessity

Physical motion is the result of reason (logos) and necessity (anagke) and not of divine justice or moral law (dyke). Generation is an arbitrary motion from one state of atomic conglomeration to another through void. A structure of infinite uncuttable and invisible atoms lies behind the world of everyday experience, and consequently perceptible qualities are merely by convention. Reality consists only of atoms and void.

Fragments

[1] Leucippus of Elea or Miletus (both accounts are current) had associated with Parmenides in philosophy, but in his view of reality he did not follow the same path as Parmenides and Xenophanes but rather, it seems, the opposite path. For while they regarded the whole as one, motionless, uncreated, and limited, and forbade even the search for what is not, he posited innumerable elements in perpetual motionnamely the atomsand held that the number of their shapes was infinite, on the ground that there was no reason why any atom should be of one shape rather than another; for he observed too that cominginto-being and change are incessant in the world. Further he held that not-being exists as well as being, and the two are equally the causes of things coming-into-being. The nature of atoms he supposed to be compact and full; that, he said, was being, and it moved in the void, which he called not-being and held to exist no less than being. In the same way his associate, Democritus of Abdera, posited as principles the full and the void.

[2] Apollodorus in the Chronicles says that Epicurus was instructed by Nausiphanes and Praxiphanes; but Epicurus himself denies this, saying in the letter to Eurylochus that he instructed himself. He and Hemarchus both maintain that there never was a philosopher Leucippus, who some (including Apollodorus the Epicurean) say was the teacher of Democritus.

[3] Leucippus postulated atoms and void, and in this Democritus resembled him, though in other respects he was more productive.

[4] Democritus ... met Leucippus and, according to some, Anaxagoras also, whose junior he was by forty years.... As he himself says in the Little World-system, he was a young man in the old age of Anaxagoras, being forty years younger.

[5] Demetrius in his Homonyms and Antisthenes in his Successions say that he [Democritus] traveled to Egypt to visit the priests and learn geometry, and that he went also to Persia to visit the Chaldaeans, and to the Red Sea. Some say that he associated with the "naked philosophers" in India; also that he went to Ethiopia.

[6] Leucippus thought he had arguments which would assert what is consistent sense-perception and not do away with coming into being or perishing or motion, or the plurality of existents. He agrees with the appearances to this extent, but he concedes, to those who maintain the One [the Eleatics], that there would be no motion without void, and says that the void is non-existent, and that no part of what is is nonexistentfor what is in the strict sense is wholly and fully being. But such being, he says, is not one; there is an infinite number, and they are invisible because of the smallness of the particles. They move in the void (for there is void), and when they come together they cause coming to be, and when they separate they cause perishing.

[7] They [Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus] said that the first principles were infinite in number, and thought they were indivisible atoms and impassible owing to their compactness, and without any void in them; divisibility comes about because of the void in compound bodies.

[8] To this extent they differed, that one [Epicurus] supposed that all atoms were very small, and on that account imperceptible; the other, Democritus, that there are some atoms that are very large.

[9] Democritus holds the same view as Leucippus about the elements, full and void. . . he spoke as if the things that are were in constant motion in the void; and there are innumerable worlds which differ in size. In some worlds there is no sun and moon, in others they are larger than in our world, and in others more numerous. The intervals between the worlds are unequal; in some parts there are more worlds, in others fewer; some are increasing, some at their height, some decreasing; in some parts they are arising, in others failing. They are destroyed by collision, one with another. There are some worlds devoid of living creatures or plants or any moisture.

[10] Everything happens according to necessity; for the cause of the coming-into-being of all things is the whirl, which he calls necessity.

[11] As they [the atoms] move, they collide and become entangled in such away as to cling in close contact to one another, but not so as to form one substance of them in reality of any kind whatever; for it is very simple-minded to suppose that two or more could ever become one. The reason he gives for atoms staying together for a while is the intertwining and mutual hold of the primary bodies; for some of them are angular, some hooked, some concave, some convex, and indeed with countless other differences; so he thinks they cling to each other and stay together until such time as some stronger necessity comes from the surrounding and shakes and scatters them apart.

[12] Democritus says that the spherical is the most mobile of shapes; and such is mind and fire.

[13] Democritus and the majority of natural philosophers who discuss perception are guilty of a great absurdity; for they represent all perception as being by touch.

[14] Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus say that perception and thought arise when images enter from outside; neither occurs to anybody without an image impinging.

[15] Democntus explains sight by the visual image, which he describes in a peculiar way; the visual image does not arise directly in the pupil, but the air between the eye and the object of sight is contracted and stamped by the object seen and the seer; for from everything there is always a sort of effluence proceeding. So this air, which is solid and variously colored, appears in the eye, which is moist (?); the eye does not admit the dense part, but the moist passes through.

[16] We know nothing about anything really, but opinion is for all individuals an inflowing (?of the atoms).

[17] It will be obvious that it is impossible to understand how in reality each thing is.

[18] Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; atoms and void (alone) exist in reality.... We know nothing accurately in reality, but (only) as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon (the body) and impinge upon it.

[19] It has often been demonstrated that we do not grasp how each thing is or is not.

[20] There are two sorts of knowledge, one genuine, one bastard (or "obscure"). To the latter belong all the following: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The real is separated from this. When the bastard can do no moreneither see more minutely, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor perceive by touchand a finer investigation is needed, then the genuine comes in as having a tool for distinguishing more finely.

[21] Naught exists just as much as Aught.

ranquility.