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What is remarkable about the history of atomism is the fact that it can be traced back to the very beginning of human reflection on nature. It is needless to recall the Pythagorean monadism and the names of Leucippus, Democritus and Lucretius: atomism is clearly as old as the first scientific and even proto-scientific explanations of nature. What is even more remarkable is that human thought was able so early and without the aid of microscope and measuring devices to anticipate one of the main findings of modern science. The significance of this anticipation is not diminished by the fact that only the most general features of modern atomism were present in the thought of its ancient ancestors: it was still quite an achievement in the fifth century B.C. to hold the view that space is infinite, that matter is homogeneous and discontinuous in its structure and that all diversity and all changes in nature are reducible to the configurations and displacements of homogeneous, permanent units. The question why and how such a successful anticipation of modern physical science occurred, has been and still is largely ignored; and when it is not ignored, the explanations suggested are hardly satisfactory. These explanations fall roughly into two distinct groups.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-2123-8_8

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