When and Where did the Atomic Theory Come From?

[Rev. Rye]

This is actually a very complicated question:

• Leucippus (his historicity possible, but not proven) and his student Democritus developed the theory of the atom around the fifth century BC in an attempt at reconciling Heraclitus and Parmenides. Aristotle rejected atomic theory and so, with his ascendancy, atomic theory becomes dormant for over a millennium.
  
• Surprisingly, thinkers in India, most notably Kanada (and yes, that was his name), author of the Vaisesika Sutra, stumbled upon a very similar atomic theory to that of Democritus, and possibly even doing so before Democritus. That said, since Atoms weren't mentoned in the Vedas, it did not catch on in India until later.
  
• Near the end of the 18th Century, John Dalton, emboldened by the discovery of the Law of Conservation of Mass, starts work on figuring out the various elements, and even begins to figure out what they're made of and their relative size differences. He first does an oral presentation in 1803, publishes a paper in 1805, and fleshes it all out in 1808's A New System of Chemical Philosophy.
  
• And shit just gets more complicated from there...
  

Thanks. Rev. You've given me something I can work with. What about the work of Heraclitus and Parmenides was Democritus trying to reconcile that led him to think in terms of atoms?

Well, Parmenides believed in monism and denied motion, change, and void. Heraclitus believed change was the only constant in the world. Apparently, the theory of atoms seemed to flow from an understanding of the void for reasons that escape me because the philosphy of the Pre-Socratics can be very strange, with some leaps in logic that may or may not be solely because of gaps in the historical record.

[Rhondazvous]

Thanks. Rev. You've given me something I can work with. What about the work of Heraclitus and Parmenides was Democritus trying to reconcile that led him to think in terms of atoms?

Well, Parmenides believed in monism and denied motion, change, and void. Heraclitus believed change was the only constant in the world. Apparently, the theory of atoms seemed to flow from an understanding of the void for reasons that escape me because the philosphy of the Pre-Socratics can be very strange, with some leaps in logic that may or may not be solely because of gaps in the historical record.

That is a huge gap to jump from two philosophical ideas to knowledge about the physical structure of matter.

My interest in this subject is, of course, literary. Just as you guys authenticated the names and behaviors of quanta so I could dramatize these things in a fiction novel, I'm now moving up to the atom and looking for angles that will help me develop a story line.

[Rev. Rye]

Well, Parmenides believed in monism and denied motion, change, and void. Heraclitus believed change was the only constant in the world. Apparently, the theory of atoms seemed to flow from an understanding of the void for reasons that escape me because the philosphy of the Pre-Socratics can be very strange, with some leaps in logic that may or may not be solely because of gaps in the historical record.

That is a huge gap to jump from two philosophical ideas to knowledge about the physical structure of matter.

My interest in this subject is, of course, literary. Just as you guys authenticated the names and behaviors of quanta so I could dramatize these things in a fiction novel, I'm now moving up to the atom and looking for angles that will help me develop a story line.

Yes, it is a pretty big gap. I'm not sure how much of it's due to the massive gaps in the historical record that are pretty much part and parcel for the Pre-Socratics and how much of it's due to their thought really being that out there (what with Parmenides denying motion).

The best I've been able to figure out was that the atoms were the unchanging things that remained while their formation changed (taking a strangely Avogadro-type attitude about how they grouped together by default). This may be a good place to start. Maybe the old analogy about cutting an apple until we're only left with a slice so thin there's nothing left to cut was original to Leucippus and Democritus, but I can't find any evidence of it being mentioned before the 1900s (though I could be wrong).

And now I find myself curious about this novel. My guess from what info you gave is that it's either a novel about the development of atomic philosophy and theory, or something that does for physics or chemistry what Sophie's World does for philosophy. Will your discussions on atomism stick with the traditional Europeans or are you considering a digression into Kanada's Vaisesika Sutra?

[Rhondazvous]

Yes, it is a pretty big gap. I'm not sure how much of it's due to the massive gaps in the historical record that are pretty much part and parcel for the Pre-Socratics and how much of it's due to their thought really being that out there (what with Parmenides denying motion).

The best I've been able to figure out was that the atoms were the unchanging things that remained while their formation changed (taking a strangely Avogadro-type attitude about how they grouped together by default). This may be a good place to start. Maybe the old analogy about cutting an apple until we're only left with a slice so thin there's nothing left to cut was original to Leucippus and Democritus, but I can't find any evidence of it being mentioned before the 1900s (though I could be wrong).

And now I find myself curious about this novel. My guess from what info you gave is that it's either a novel about the development of atomic philosophy and theory, or something that does for physics or chemistry what Sophie's World does for philosophy. Will your discussions on atomism stick with the traditional Europeans or are you considering a digression into Kanada's Vaisesika Sutra?

The article is beyond intriguing in and of itself. Thanks Rye.

This atomist natural philosophy eschewed teleological explanation and denied divine intervention or design, regarding every composite of atoms as produced purely by material interactions of bodies

This is the evolution of the material universe 2300 years before Darwin! Can you imagine where humanity would be now if we hadn’t allowed the Church to smother all of Europe in philosophical hemlock? Einstein could have been born thousands of years ago. We’d be teaching the grand unified theory in high school science class.

I’m on pins and needles thinking of how atomism can be applied to time.

I will use this information to flesh out the characters in a fiction novel. For instance, in Queen of the Quantum Realm, I have a renegade positron who loves other positrons. He gathers a flock of lost and rejected positrons and tells them he is their prophesied savior.

The details of how I will use the information in the novel about atoms is still inchoate, but you have helped me already. I’m thinking I could probably use Zeno of Elea. I might also find something useful in the Vaisesika Sutra.

[Rev. Rye]

Also, Islamic scientists like Al-Ghazali and Averroes had some atomist theories, but, surprisingly, it went over fairly well.

Back in the west, a transitional theory called Corpuscularianism (like atomism, only it's still potentially divisible, allowing for alchemy) became popular starting in the 17th Century (notably starting with a treatise by Galileo called Discourse on Floating Bodies, which presumably got overshadowed by his defense of Copernicus), with luminaries like Descartes, Newton, Boyle, and Hobbes (who actually used it to justify some of his arguments on politics in Leviathan).

Of course, that changed, and I'm inclined to think Seele, Priestley, and Lavoisier's independent and nigh-on-simultaneous discovery of Oxygen may have been the initial tipping point, especially after Lavoisier published an Elementary Treatise of Chemistry, listing 33 elements. My guess is, after that, it was only a matter of time before atomism truly went back into vogue.

[Rhondazvous]

Also, Islamic scientists like Al-Ghazali and Averroes had some atomist theories, but, surprisingly, it went over fairly well.

Back in the west, a transitional theory called Corpuscularianism (like atomism, only it's still potentially divisible, allowing for alchemy) became popular starting in the 17th Century (notably starting with a treatise by Galileo called Discourse on Floating Bodies, which presumably got overshadowed by his defense of Copernicus), with luminaries like Descartes, Newton, Boyle, and Hobbes (who actually used it to justify some of his arguments on politics in Leviathan).

Of course, that changed, and I'm inclined to think Seele, Priestley, and Lavoisier's independent and nigh-on-simultaneous discovery of Oxygen may have been the initial tipping point, especially after Lavoisier published an Elementary Treatise of Chemistry, listing 33 elements. My guess is, after that, it was only a matter of time before atomism truly went back into vogue.

"Corpuscularianism"
One moment, please, while I untangle my tongue. This could be a very delicate operation, and I may need a local anesthesia.

It seems that what we call the age of discovery was actually the age of rediscovery, or rather using modern technology to build upon what was already known to a rudimentary extent by the ancients.

[brewer]

It came from Dr. Atomic, 1972, and should not be confused with Captain Atom. 

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/dr-atomic-1/4000-335748/

[Rev. Rye]

Also, Islamic scientists like Al-Ghazali and Averroes had some atomist theories, but, surprisingly, it went over fairly well.

Back in the west, a transitional theory called Corpuscularianism (like atomism, only it's still potentially divisible, allowing for alchemy) became popular starting in the 17th Century (notably starting with a treatise by Galileo called Discourse on Floating Bodies, which presumably got overshadowed by his defense of Copernicus), with luminaries like Descartes, Newton, Boyle, and Hobbes (who actually used it to justify some of his arguments on politics in Leviathan).

Of course, that changed, and I'm inclined to think Seele, Priestley, and Lavoisier's independent and nigh-on-simultaneous discovery of Oxygen may have been the initial tipping point, especially after Lavoisier published an Elementary Treatise of Chemistry, listing 33 elements. My guess is, after that, it was only a matter of time before atomism truly went back into vogue.

"Corpuscularianism"
One moment, please, while I untangle my tongue. This could be a very delicate operation, and I may need a local anesthesia.

It seems that what we call the age of discovery was actually the age of rediscovery, or rather using modern technology to build upon what was already known to a rudimentary extent by the ancients.

Honestly, the more I'm looking into the history of atomic theory, I'm beginning to suspect that, between Aristotle and Dalton, atomic theory didn't so much go out of vogue, as much as morphed beyond recognition; even though Aristotle rejected Democritus' atomism, the natura minimalia he mentioned in the Physics and Meteorology still sounds quite a bit like it (if in an admittedly unusually cruder version for Aristotle.)

[Rhondazvous]

"Corpuscularianism"
One moment, please, while I untangle my tongue. This could be a very delicate operation, and I may need a local anesthesia.

It seems that what we call the age of discovery was actually the age of rediscovery, or rather using modern technology to build upon what was already known to a rudimentary extent by the ancients.

Honestly, the more I'm looking into the history of atomic theory, I'm beginning to suspect that, between Aristotle and Dalton, atomic theory didn't so much go out of vogue, as much as morphed beyond recognition; even though Aristotle rejected Democritus' atomism, the natura minimalia he mentioned in the Physics and Meteorology still sounds quite a bit like it (if in an admittedly unusually cruder version for Aristotle.)

How would you describe this morphing?

The natural philosophy by which the ancients gained knowledge is a far cry from the scientific observation that informs modern knowledge. With thousands of years of ignorance and the rejection of all kinds of knowledge from B.C.E. and well into C.E. I guess I can see why they made the jump because it was the observation of the discoverers (the Earth is round, the Earth orbits the sun, etc.) that dispelled the ignorance of the Church, whereas mere thinkers fell victim to it.

[Rev. Rye]

Honestly, the more I'm looking into the history of atomic theory, I'm beginning to suspect that, between Aristotle and Dalton, atomic theory didn't so much go out of vogue, as much as morphed beyond recognition; even though Aristotle rejected Democritus' atomism, the natura minimalia he mentioned in the Physics and Meteorology still sounds quite a bit like it (if in an admittedly unusually cruder version for Aristotle.)

How would you describe this morphing?

The natural philosophy by which the ancients gained knowledge is a far cry from the scientific observation that informs modern knowledge. With thousands of years of ignorance and the rejection of all kinds of knowledge from B.C.E. and well into C.E. I guess I can see why they made the jump because it was the observation of the discoverers (the Earth is round, the Earth orbits the sun, etc.) that dispelled the ignorance of the Church, whereas mere thinkers fell victim to it.

Sort of like how atomic theory changed in the 200 years since Dalton's discovery, only the deviations are sometimes a lot more questionable.