Matter ancient Greek view

Greek philosophers viewed the physical world as matter organized in the form of bodies having length, breadth, and depth that could act and be acted upon. They also believed that these bodies made up a material continuum unpunctuated by voids. Within such a universe, they speculated about the creation and destruction of bodies, their causes, the essence they consisted of, and the purpose they existed for. Surfaces did not fit easily into these ancient pictures of the world, even those painted by the atomists, who admitted to the existence of voids. The problem of defining the boundary or limit of a body or between two adjacent bodies led Aristotle (fourth century BC) and others to deny that a surface has any substance. Given Aristotle s dominance in ancient philosophy, his view of surfaces persisted for many centuries, and may have delayed serious theoretical speculation about the nature of solid surfaces [2]. 

---