Summary: What's the matter? This was no trivial question for Democritus, generally considered the father of the atom. Like his fellow philosophers in ancient Greece, he was gravely concerned with discovering the nature of the universe through reason and argument, and hence wanted to understand the basic composition of material things. His postulate, that there are minuscule, indivisible units of matter, was revolutionary and resisted by many scientists until the early 20th century.
The late Dr. Bernard Pullman, former professor of quantum chemistry at the Sorbonne, presents a challenging, broad-ranging history of this seemingly simple idea in "The Atom in the History of Human Thought". The language is remarkably clear, thanks in part to the translation of Axel Reisinger; there are no awkward phrasings or unfamiliar idioms to puzzle the reader. Instead we are told the life story of an idea, one so basic to our modern understanding of the world as to seem almost obvious.
But, as Pullman shows us, it was not only resisted but actively suppressed for centuries. From the often-bizarre notions of the ancients (could the universe really be made only of water?) to the equally bizarre concepts of modern atomic theory (is your chair really composed almost entirely of empty space?), with occasional forays into the science of the Islamic and Hindu worlds, he shows many attempts to answer the most fundamental question in science and philosophy. With such a long and controversial history, it's little wonder that we still haven't set matter straight. "--Rob Lightner" |
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