Let us start with Democritus, who is an important character in the theme of the book. Then, an opposite view is presented, that taken by Plato. These two are the ancient Greek counterparts to the two mentioned in our book title. However, they were influenced by philosophers who investigated the same topic, following the principle that there is a rational explanation to the physical world. Thus, various schools related to the topic (in Ionia, in Athens, in Magna Graecia, and in Alexandria) will be briefly mentioned (see Fig. 2).
Figure 1: Feynman’s blackboard.
The origin of atomism is credited to a remarkable Greek natural philosopher Democritus (460 BC–370 BC) of Abdera, Thrace. He was born in the 80th Olympiad (460 BC–457 BC) according to Apollodorus of Athens. He lived in the first classical period of the Greek tradition. Greek philosophy is said to have begun in 585 BC when Thales of Miletus predicted the eclipse of the Sun and ended when the Academy of Athens closed in 529 AD as a result of the East Roman Emperor Justinian’s stopping of its financial support. The period 2,500 years ago when Democritus worked was when the first problems were encountered. The first philosophers had the problem of defining the concepts, and Greek is accurate on this account compared to Latin and English. Science today has its jargon. For example, we use “flavour” and “colour” for properties of elementary particles, but we adopt these just for naming.
The first philosophers’ definition turns out to be consistent with later use. The noun kosmos derives from a verb meaning “to order”, “to arrange”, and “to marshal”. Thus, what the first Greek philosophers meant by kosmos was an orderly arrangement. Our use of the cosmos is the universe, the totality of things, but it is an ordered universe. The word physics derives from a verb “to grow”. Growing things, plants, animals, and moving planets, are different from stones at rest. Thus, physics meant study of nature in contrast to artificial items, and corresponds to the present-day science. A cause is needed for movement. The word arche cognates from a verb meaning “to begin”, “to commence”, “to rule”, and “to govern”. Writers on early Greek philosophy use arche to mean principle, which is not different from our current understanding. It is said that arche was first used by Anaximander. Nature is the principle and origin of growth.
Figure 2: A map of ancient Greek city states. Magna Graecia was the coastal areas of southern Italy, and Ionia included islands Chios and Samos and nearby four city states.
Gautama Buddha (624 BC–544 BC) was an enlightened teacher. The correct date of Buddha’s death was in dispute before 1956 AD, but it was declared officially in the sixth official meeting of Buddhist monks that that year was the 2,500 year anniversary of Buddha’s death. According to Buddha’s teaching, all beings come into being or cease to be, based on the causes and conditions which brought them into existence. In other words, they arise or cease only through interdependent relationships. The chief priest of the Buddhist temple Yakcheonsa, Sung Ku Kim (once an active quantum field theorist), says that the law of relationships or the theory of links — yeonkibeob in Korean — is the first principle of Buddhist philosophy. Without using the word creation, nothing exists on its own independent of anything else. Buddha’s teaching starts with brahman (meaning all in the universe in Sanskrit) and atman (real thing possessing the brahman). Around the same time when the first Greek philosophers (for example, Thales (624–623 BC to 548–545 BC)) anguished over defining the words including kosmos, Buddha taught his enlightenment to students in terms of brahman and atman, the self that possesses the faculties of feeling, understanding, will, and consciousness. Unlike the four elements of Plato, Buddhism does not allow creation of atman out of brahman. There are links only between atman.
The original writings on papyrus books of two and half millennia ago have not survived the time, largely due to the effects of climate and pests. The oldest writing on papyrus is the 4,500-year-old logbook Diary of Merer, recording transportation of casting stones to Giza from Tura, for Khufu’s Pyramid. It was found in a cave in Wadi al-Jarf on the dry Red Sea coast by archeologist Pierre Tallet in 2013. But, most books have not survived. Even if books from classical antiquity survived the perils of fire, raindrops from the library ceiling, or wear from excessive readings, they could not escape white-silver shiny bookworms. Aristotle presumed the existence of tiny bookworms, which were finally seen by Robert Hooke through a microscope in 1655. These worms are called “teeth of time” in The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt. Writings in classical antiquity were on papyrus papers which are made from the 40-cm papyrus stems soaked in the Nile. The insect “teeth of time” finds this papyrus and nibbles away books like wood-eating ants destroying wooden structures over time. So, it was important that the writings of the first philosophers be copied for the next generations. When copied by scribes, there must have been errors or intended changes.
Between classical antiquity and now, the prodigious writer Simplicius of Sicily (c. 490–560) commented extensively on the works of Aristotle and others from which most of our information on the first philosophers is derived. Simplicius must have used copies of copies of copies of Lucretius’ copy of copies of Aristotle. The thoughts of the first philosophers were commented on by Aristotle and others in what are called “fragments” from which we understand the works of the first philosophers. Atomism of the classical antiquity arrives to us through Aristotle’s fragments, Simplicius’ translation, repeatedly copied by scribes in Christian monasteries in the Dark Ages dominated by Christianity, and Poggio’s discovery of Lucretius’ poems1:
“Fear holds dominion over mortality
Only because seeing in land and sky
So much the course whereof no wise they knew,
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
But each might grow from any stock or limb
By chance and change, Indeed, and were there not For each its procreant atoms, could things have
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
But yet creation’s neither crammed nor blocked About by body: there’s in things a void–
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
Thus primal bodies are solid, without void.”
What Lucretius wrote is that the material of the universe is an infinite number of atoms moving randomly in the void (space). Now, most sources credit Democritus as the first atomist. His exact contributions are difficult to disentangle from those of his mentor Leucippus, as they are often mentioned together in texts. None of his writings have survived; only fragments are known from his vast body of work. Leucippus, the founder of atomism, was the greatest influence upon him. He and Democritus praise Anaxagoras. Most sources say that Democritus followed in the tradition of Leucippus and that they carried on the scientific rationalist philosophy associated with the school in Miletus. Both were thoroughly materialist, believing everything to be the result of natural laws. Unlike Aristotle or Plato, the atomists attempted to explain the world without reasoning as to purpose, prime mover,2 or final cause. The atomists’ questions of physics should be answered with a purely mechanistic question, “What earlier circumstances caused this event?”, while their opponents search for “explanations” (logos), in addition to the material and mechanistic (see Fig. 3).
The atomistic void hypothesis was a response to the paradoxes of Parmenides and Zeno in Elea, the founders of metaphysical logic, who put forth arguments difficult to answer. To draw no movement in Democritus’ atomic theory, Parmenides and Zeno held that any movement