Although Democritus' theory was remarkable, it was rejected by Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers of Ancient Greece and the atomic theory was ignored for nearly 2,000 years. Therefore, changes in matter were a result of dissociations or combinations of the atoms as they moved throughout the void. He considered the existence of a void, which. In addition, Democritus believed that the atoms differed in size and shape, were in constant motion in a void, collided with each other and during these collisions, could rebound or stick together. Aristotle asserted that the elements of fire, air, earth, and water were not made of atoms, but were continuous. Ernest Rutherford’s gold foil experiment involved a particle emitter, a round detecting screen with a slit in it and a slip of gold foil in the middle. He developed this theory with his gold foil experiment. Democritus, theorized that atoms were specific to the material which they composed. Rutherford’s atomic theory was that an atom had a central positive nucleus with negative electrons orbiting it. Many chemists and philosophers argued Aristotle and believed in atomic theory. His beliefs held that the world was made of elements endlessly divisible. Aristotle argued alchemy above observation and scientific research. He called these small pieces of matter ' atomos,' the Greek word for indivisible. Aristotle contributed to modern atomic theory by introducing alchemy, an ideology that chemists eventually rebelled against. Democritus knew that if a stone was divided in half, the two halves would have essentially the same properties as the whole.Therefore, he reasoned that if the stone were to be continually cut into smaller and smaller pieces then at some point, there would be a piece which would be so small as to be indivisible. One of the first atomic theorists was Democritus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the fifth century BC. In this lesson, we will review the development of the atomic theory. We also know that atoms can be further subdivided, but there is still a lower limit to how small we can break up that grain of sand.Atomic Structure, Periodicity, and Matter: Development of the Atomic Theory We now know more about how atoms hold together in “clusters” (compounds), but the basic concept existed over two thousand years ago. Aristotle said he didnt believe in the theory of Atoms because you would be putting a restriction on the gods. It is very interesting that Democritus had the basic idea of atoms, even though he had no experimental evidence to support his thinking. We had to wait almost two thousand years before scientists came around to seeing the atom as Democritus did. The theory of Democritus explained things better, but Aristotle was more influential, so his ideas prevailed. According to Aristotle, everything was composed of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. When these atoms collided with one another, they might repel each other or they might connect in clusters, held together by tiny hooks and barbs on the surface of the atoms.Īristotle disagreed with Democritus and offered his own idea of the composition of matter. The void was the empty space in which the atoms moved and collided with one another. Aristotle considers various theories of his predecessors. There was an infinite number of atoms, but different types of atoms had different sizes and shapes. In the course of spelling out the problem which the theory of substance should address. The word “ atom” comes from the Greek atomos and means “indivisible.” The atomists of the time (Democritus being one of the leading atomists) believed there were two realities that made up the physical world: atoms and void.

Aristotle atomic theory