The Atomism or corpuscular Philosophy

Leukippos, Hving during the last part of the 5 century BC was the teacher of Demokritos (460-370 bc). They had a different opinion of matter and taught that the fundamental constituents of matter are the atoms. There is an infinite number of them and they are small and invisible. They exist in the unbounded void, being entirely separate from each other, and move through the void in random directions. When they collide with other atoms, suitable in shape and size, they become interlocked. In this way composite bodies are formed. The original atomistic theory was of course just a philosophy, and no more scientific than Empedokles ideas, in spite of its similarities with the science of our time. As a theory of matter it did not become reaUy important until the scientific revival in the seventeenth century. 

Bernard PuUrnan [2.1], however, writes about these early thinkers and their creating power  

From the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, who lived from ca. 95 to 55 bc, a complete statement of the original atomism has reached us from antiquity. In the long poem De Rerum Natura [2.2] he argues that the fact that the atoms (primordial particles in the poem) cannot be seen does not imply that they are not present With a good pedagogic feeHng he asks his readers to look at the sunbeams entering a dark, dusty room - asks them to observe the atoms  

---