The “atom” lost its original meaning, and that’s good for science

Proposed over 2000 years ago by Democritus, the word atom literally means uncuttable. Revived in 1803, today’s “atoms” can indeed be split.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Put forth way back in the 5th century BCE, the concept of the atom was that matter, at a fundamental level, was made up of uncuttable, indivisible entities.

• While Democritus’s original notion of different-shaped building blocks wasn’t quite correct, the idea was revived in 1803 by John Dalton, who recognized the atom as a basic element of our world.

• While atoms and the different types (or elements) of atoms do play a major role in our everyday lives, the atom itself is not an uncuttable entity. That’s not a bug of science; that’s a feature.