THE SEARCH FOR THE ULTIMATE ATOM* 

 By J. L. Lake 



Just when the belief in a primordial atom originated in the mind 

 of man seems difficult to determine. Sometimes it seems like a primal 

 notion. The Encyclopedia Britannica tells us, "The concept of an 

 element as a substance from which all bodies are made or derived 

 was held at the very beginning of occidental philosophy." "We are 

 also told that Thales of Miletus, Avho immortalized himself by record- 

 ing the fact that rubbed amber would attract light bodies, regarded 

 water as the element of all things, and that his followers accepted 

 his ideas of a primordial substance as the basis of all bodies but 

 that they endeavored to determine some other general elements. 



Democritus is regarded as the founder of the atomic theory though 

 we are told that traces of the conception of the grained structure 

 of matter are to be found in Indian philosophy perhaps twelve cen- 

 turies before the Christian era. As Millikan says of the principles 

 of Democritus as given by Tyndall, with a few modifications and 

 omissions they might almost pass muster today. Yet though his theory 

 was advocated by Epicurus and the Latin poet, Lucretius, the Platonic 

 school prevailed, and, as we know, the Aristotelian philosophy domi- 

 nated the world of science as well as philosophy till the seventeenth 

 century. 



In the time of Boyle and Newton, however, an atomic theory re- 

 appeared. We know how forcefully Newton maintained the cor- 

 puscular theory of light. He also regarded gases as consisting of 

 small separate particles which repelled one another, and attributed 

 to this supposed repulsion between the particles the tendency of 

 gases to expand. It was Dalton, however, who resurrected the atomic 

 theory and made it a scientific hypothesis to explain experimentally 

 determined facts instead of mere speculation. This was about 1803. 

 Soon after this Prout published his hypothesis — that hydrogen is the 

 primordial atom, that the atoms of all heavier chemical elements 

 are built up from it. Von Meyer in his History of Chemistry (1891) 

 speaks of the baneful effects of Prout 's hypothesis. He states the 



* Presidential address before the N. C. Academy of Science, May 5, 1922. 



