The STORY of DEMOCRITUS

Democritus was a philosopher (scientific thinker) who lived in ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago; he is best known for his theory about the fundamental nature of matter. He used this famous “thought experiment” to determine what substances and materials are made of:

Holding a gold coin in his hand, Democritus wondered: If I were to cut it in half, would each half of the coin still be gold? The answer was obvious; of course each half would still be made of gold. Democritus continued: And if I cut the half-coin in half again, the smaller pieces would indeed still be made of gold. He then asked a most important series of questions: Could I continue cutting each successive half-piece of gold for an unlimited number of times? Could a piece of gold be so small that I could not see it with my naked eye? Would there be no limit to how small a piece of gold could be? Is there no limit to the number times each tinier piece of gold could be cut in half again and again? Or, is there a limit to how small a particle of matter can be? Is there a point at which a very tiny piece of gold cannot be cut in half?

Which conclusion do you think Democritus arrived at? Do you think he was right?

#1

A piece of gold cannot be cut in half for an unlimited number of times, therefore matter cannot be infinitely small. There is a point at which the smallest imaginable particle of gold can no longer be cut in half and it has a minimum size that cannot be smaller.

#2

A piece of gold can be cut in half for an unlimited number of times, therefore matter can be infinitely small. There is no minimum size limit to matter; therefore, there is no such thing as a “smallest particle of gold”.

Answer: #1 Democritus used the *Greek word for "indivisible" to describe these extraordinarily small units of matter that could not be cut in half.

His conclusion has been proven to be accurate!

Can you identify the *Greek word for "indivisible" from the list below?

mikrons atoms nukleis molecules mikroskopicos cells