Democritus Research Paper

Words: 1201
Pages: 5

Democritus believed that atoms had shape, mass, and motion but no other characteristics, such as color or flavor. He believed that atoms had a variety of shapes because he thought, “Why should they have one shape rather than another?” Democritus drew conclusions that atoms existed by watching decaying and mixing of elements. For example, he found that when water and mud are mixed it's hard to separate them once they combine. He stated that atoms are immutable stuff that will remain invisible. He said that nothing could come from nothing and that everything is already in this world meaning that everything came from atoms. Democritus and other atomists thought that the atom cannot be divided into anything smaller than the atom. He concluded that solidness of any material depended on the shape of the atom. Aristotle’s beliefs about the atom were different. He believed that only elements existed. These elements were air, earth, water, fire, and aether. His theory was proven wrong because if you look at the periodic table you'll see that there is a total of 118 different elements. He stated that all matter was made of either one elements of water, air, earth, and fire or a combination of them, not including aether which makes stars …show more content…
Examples of atoms of a given element that are different would be isotopes. Isotopes have the same number of protons but different mass numbers. Atoms can be divided into smaller particles because we now know that atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and