Module 1 : History of Atomic & Molecular Physics and basic backgrounds
Lecture 2 : A brief history of the development of structure of atom
Ancient History of Atom
The ancients have hypothecated that matter is made out of atoms for many millennia.
The word "atom'' comes from the Greek word “a-tomio” which means “uncuttable'' coined by the Greek philosopher Democritus of Adbera (Northern Greece) around 500 B.C.
Democritus proposed that all material things are composed of extremely small irreducible particles called atoms.
Democritus by Agostino Carracci
(Ref: http://www.intermed.it/liceo/materiali/img)
However, the atomic theory was rejected by Aristotle, and thus, by almost everybody else for the next two millennia.
