Beyond the God Particle by Leon M. Lederman, Christopher T. Hill Read Free Book Online

considered by some to be the “father of modern science,” certainly the Galileo of his age. Democritus was born around 470 BCE, and died around 370 BCE, thus living to the ripe old age of about 100. 1 He was often viewed as an eccentric fellow and largely ignored in his home town of Athens, and was supposedly detested by Plato, who denied ever meeting him (though this was unlikely since Plato allegedly wanted all of Democritus's books burned).
    Democritus inherited the moniker “the laughing philosopher,” as he evidently found most of the ideas of other contemporary philosophers to be rather humorous, if not ridiculous. We can imagine him heckling Plato during a lecture in some curia, circa 400 BCE, perhaps asking a subtle and detailed question about a certain chemical reaction about which Plato could not begin to answer:
     
P: And the natural order and simplicity of nature is simply that all things can be resolved to the five “elements,” the “air,” the “fire,” the “water,” the “earth,” and the “quintessence,” and that's all of it.
D: Master, are these elements transmutable into one another?
P: No, truly not, sir, for as I say, they are elemental .
D: But of what element is the brilliant light of the sun?

P: (pause) I suppose…a form of quintessence as it does flow though space which is filled of quintessence and so it must be such.
D: And, master, of what element is papyrus?
P: Surely, papyrus is a form of the earth as it comes from the earth.
D: So, master, if I place a gem of spherically shaped quartz between the position of the sun, and that of a papyrus scroll, which you say is a form of the earth, I can direct, or “focus,” the sun-light, a form of quintessence, upon the papyrus and I can produce a fire. Have I not converted the quintessence into the fire or the earth into the fire?
P: I do not believe this can happen, sir.
D: I have set up the experiment here, master (Democritus directs Plato and the audience to a window at which he has an apparatus. With the apparatus he focuses sunlight onto a piece of scroll paper, and it shortly smokes then bursts into flames) .
P: (impatiently) Well, if this is not a ruse then perhaps…perhaps light is really a form of fire, so you have not converted anything into anything else.
D: But if I should send the light, that you now say is fire, into an urn of oil, it becomes dark…where has the fire now gone? Has it become the oil which you would say is the earth?
P: Indeed… (pause, stammer) well, perhaps it is as we said quintessence…
D: Then as I burn the papyrus (the paper continues to smolder) , which is a form of the earth, in the fire, and the smoke rises into the air, and the papyrus disappears, have I not converted the earth into air?
P: (long indignant pause)
D: Bbbbwwwaaahahahaha… (Democritus bursts into a sneering and callous laughter) .
     
    Democritus wanted real and detailed answers to scientific questions. From Democritus we got a conceptual basis of the elements. These elements, he reasoned, must have certain complex dynamical properties that cause them to ultimately shape and define the behavior of matter. The multitude of various properties of ordinary matter are reduced to the more fundamental properties of atoms. Some elements were envisioned to be little spherical balls that could freely flow (e.g., liquids), while others had hooks and could form stiff structural bonds (metals), and still others had block-like shapes that might make regular crystalline arrays (diamond or quartz). The theoryhad to explain all known phenomena correctly, perhaps even predict new observable phenomena, the standard to which science holds all theories.
    Of course, this was an ultra-ambitious undertaking in those days. Democritus had no microscopes, or particle accelerators, to test and validate his hypothesis. But his reductionist hypothesis implied rules and organizing principles for chemistry. Democritus dubbed the basic constituents of matter