Democritus

Bertrand Russell’s book A History of Western Philosophy is still sitting beside me and demanding time I should be spending writing. As I said the last time, reading about the early philosopher’s ideas about the world is something that truly fascinates me. How did Democritus come up with the idea of atoms? An aside – I know it is thought he was repeating his teacher’s ideas. Back to the idea – how do you look at the world around you and decide it is made up of things too small to be further divided, atoms? I know from my education atoms exist, but they are made up of even smaller particles such as electrons and neutrons. I also know they too are being divided into smaller and smaller particles. When I get involved with math of that world, it seems as if they only exist as a “wave function.” Yet, we can release their energy to destroy entire cities if not the world. It is this tremendous flow of ideas that fascinates me.  I wonder what Democritus would think of today’s atomic theory.