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Democritus (/ d ɪ ˈ m ɒ k r ɪ t ə s /, dim-OCK-rit-əs; Greek: Δημόκριτος, Dēmókritos, meaning "chosen of the people"; c. 460 – c. 370 BC) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. [2] Democritus wrote extensively on a wide ...
The 20th-century philosopher Adolf Dyroff developed a set of distinctions between Leucippus and Democritus: he proposed that Leucippus was responsible for the atomist response to the Eleatics while Democritus responded to the Sophists and that Leucippus was a cosmologist while Democritus was a polymath. [6]
Democritus and Lucretius denied the impossibility of a vacuum, being of the opinion that there must be a vacuum between the discrete particles (atoms) of which, they thought, all matter is composed. In general, however, the belief that a vacuum is impossible was almost universally held until the end of the sixteenth century. [ 41 ] ...
Thus, iron atoms are solid and strong with hooks that lock them into a solid; water atoms are smooth and slippery; salt atoms, because of their taste, are sharp and pointed; and air atoms are light and whirling, pervading all other materials. [3] It was Democritus that was the main proponent of this view.
Dalton thought that water was a "binary compound", i.e. one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom. Dalton did not know that in their natural gaseous state, the ultimate particles of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen exist in pairs (O 2, N 2, and H 2). Nor was he aware of valencies. These properties of atoms were discovered later in the 19th century.
All these theories imply that matter is a continuous substance. Two Greek philosophers, Leucippus (first half of the 5th century BC) and Democritus came up with the notion that there were two real entities: atoms, which were small indivisible particles of matter, and the void, which was the empty space in which matter was located. [13]
Leucippus, went on to develop the theory of atomism – the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms. This was elaborated in great detail by Democritus. [a] Similar atomist ideas emerged independently among ancient Indian philosophers of the Nyaya, Vaisesika and Buddhist schools. [11]
A law was passed in England in 1403 which made the "multiplication of metals" punishable by death. Despite these and other apparently extreme measures, alchemy did not die. Royalty and privileged classes still sought to discover the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life for themselves. [37]