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The Origins of the Atom
 
The origins of the idea of atoms lie not with scientists in laboratories but with ancient Greek philosophers over twenty-five hundred years ago. They did not use scientific methods and so their results would be considered merely speculation today, which they were, but a few of these philosophers would create and defend a view that today we believe to be the scientific truth.
The Greeks, specifically the philosophers, were looking for searching for a middle ground between their beliefs that there is a simple great Truth that exists and the outward complexity of the natural world around them. The first Greek to make an attempt at a middle ground was Thales of Miletus (624-548 B.C.) who made the basic postulate that if the world around him was made of solely gases, liquids, and solids then the building blocks of the world must be something that can take those three forms. In addition, this substance would have to be able to transform from one form to another in a perpetual cycle. He came to the conclusion the one substance that could satisfy these conditions was water.(Trefil 4)
Think about it. What is the one substance you see daily in all three of the states of matter and change between those forms?
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