Democritus 460 BC - 370 BC

Demokritus 460 -370 eaa.

democritus 460-370 BC He wrote about Babylon and Meroe; he visited Egypt, and Diodorus Siculus says that he lived there for five years. He himself declared that no one among his contemporaries had made greater journeys, seen more countries, and met more scholars than he himself. He especially mentions the Egyptian mathematicians, whose knowledge he praised.

Theophrastus also spoke of him as a man who had seen many lands. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he became acquainted with the Chaldean sages during his travels.

Democritus was the first who realized, the Milky Way consists in reality of the light of distant stars.

The atomist theory seems to be closer to the theory of modern science than any other ancient theory.

However, the similarity to modern scientific concepts can be confusing when trying to understand where the hypothesis originated.

The theory of Democritus and Leucippus held that everything is composed of "atoms" that are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible; that there is empty space between atoms; that atoms are indestructible; have always been and always will be in motion; that there are an infinite number of atoms and different types of atoms that differ in shape and size."

Using this as a basis for the physical world, Democritus could explain all changes in the world as changes in the motion of atoms or changes in the way they were packed together. This was a remarkable theory that attempted to explain all of physics based on a few ideas and also brought mathematics into a central physical role, since the entire structure that Democritus proposed was quantitative and subject to mathematical laws. Another basic idea of Democritus' theory is that nature behaves like a machine, it is just a very complex mechanism.

Bertrand Russell states that they simply hit upon a lucky hypothesis that was only recently confirmed by evidence.

One theory: The Library of Alexandria, Eqypt?