![]() ![]() ![]() His statement that he wrote the Little World-System 730 years after the fall of Troy (Diogenes La ërtius, Lives IX, 41) is of little value since we cannot tell which of several possible chronologies for the Trojan War Democritus accepted. To judge from the number of his writings, his literary activity extended over a considerable period, but we have no means of assigning different works to different times in his life. He is variously reported to have lived between 90 and 109 years. On this evidence the date given for his birth by Apollodorus (in the 80th Olympiad, 460 –456 BCE) is generally preferred to that suggested by Thrasylus (the third year of the 77th Olympiad, 470 –469 BCE). He described himself in the Little World-System as a young man in the old age of Anaxagoras Diogenes La ërtius says that he was forty years younger than Anaxagoras. All this suggests that Leucippus was a slightly younger contemporary of Anaxagoras and that his main philosophical activity fell some time within the broad limits of 450 –420 BCE.ĭemocritus was born at Abdera. His book On Mind may have been directed partly against Anaxagoras, and according to Theophrastus, Diogenes of Apollonia derived some of his theories from Leucippus. Leucippus was probably born at Miletus reports associating him with Elea or Abdera should be taken as reflecting views concerning his philosophical affiliations rather than as reliable evidence for his birthplace. Epicurus is even reported to have said that there was no philosopher Leucippus, but the evidence of Aristotle decisively refutes this opinion (if, indeed, Epicurus did not merely intend to deny Leucippus's philosophical importance). We have very little biographical data for Leucippus. Moreover, the range of Democritus's researches surpassed that of any earlier philosopher, and he appears to have been an original and, for his day, advanced ethical thinker. 370 BCE) must go the credit for working out the detailed application of the theory and supporting it with a subtle epistemology. ![]() The originator of the atomic theory, Leucippus (fifth century BCE), must be considered a speculative thinker of the first order, but to Democritus (c. 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.Leucippus and Democritus were the earliest Greek atomists. Therefore, changes in matter were a result of dissociations or combinations of the atoms as they moved throughout the void. 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. Democritus, theorized that atoms were specific to the material which they composed. ![]() He called these small pieces of matter " atomos," the Greek word for indivisible. 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. Atomic Structure, Periodicity, and Matter: Development of the Atomic Theory ![]()
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