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"Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and Void (alone) exist in reality."
Atomic theoryBetween Bernoulli and Maxwell... Euler, dAlembert, Lagrange and Hamilt — Atomic theory
"Between Bernoulli and Maxwell... Euler, dAlembert, Lagrange and Hamilton expounded [Newtons dynamics] in more and more general forms, until at last all [mechanical] processes... were seen as conforming to... the Principle of the Conservation of Energy, and the Principle of Least Action. This mathematical drive... continued, overflowing beyond... mechanics... [and into] processes involving nonmechanical factors: heat, electricity, vitality, and chemical change... The most comprehensive exposition was given in 1847 by Hermann von Helmholtz... In 1848, J. P. Joule [demonstrated that]... whether he produced heat by the passage of an electric current, or by mechanical effort, the conversion took place at fixed, measurable rates. ...[I]t was natural to look again for an explanation ...Perhaps the production of heat by friction merely transferred mechanical energy from a visible level to an invisible one... the increased motion of the molecules... Clausius and Maxwell turned this view... into a fully-developed branch of mathematics (...from 1857 to 1866.) ...[H]eat theory had been united into the general theory of matter in motion... the random agitation of vast numbers of invisibly-small particles."
Atomic theory
Atomic theory
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Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. The definition of the word "atom" has changed over the years in response to scientific discoveries. Initially, it referred to a hypothetical fundamental particle of matter, too small to be seen by the naked eye, that could not be divided. Then the definition was refined to being the basic particles of the che
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"Neither is it impossible that of these minute Particles divers of the smallest and neighbouring ones were here and there associated into minute Masses or Clusters, and did by their Coalitions constitute great store of such little primary Concretions or Masses as were not easily dissipable into such Particles as composd them."
Atomic theoryQuote
"In 1738 Daniel Bernoulli correctly derived Boyles law by assuming gases consisted of collections of particles that continuously collided with the container walls."
Atomic theoryQuote
"The problem was that although ideas like statistical mechanics and the kinetic theory worked at the practical level to provide a mathematical description of what was going on, nobody had seen atoms—more to the point, given the technology of the time it was physically impossible to see atoms. This left the door open to for philosophers such as Ernst Mach to argue that the atomic hypothesis was no more than a hypothesis, what is known as a heuristic device, meaning just because things in the macroscopic world behave as if they were made of atoms that doesnt prove that they are... Mach regarded atoms as no more than a convenient fiction, which provided a basis for physicists to make calculations; anything that could not be detected by the human senses, he argued, was not the proper subject of scientific debate. Einstein disagreed, and argued the case for atoms with his friends. He became obsessed with the idea, and determined that if no one else could prove that atoms were real, he would do it himself."
Atomic theoryQuote
"There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomized. Unity and complementarity constitute reality."
Atomic theoryQuote
"I shall not peremptorily deny, that from most of such mixt Bodies as partake either of Animal or Vegetable Nature, there may by the Help of the Fire, be actually obtaind a determinate number (whether Three, Four or Five, or fewer or more) of Substances, worthy of differing Denominations."
Atomic theory