Why do you think democritus has been called the father of science?
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Explanation:
Democritus was an “atomist”, that is, he hypothesised that everything was made up on invisibly small particles which came together in different ways to form different observable kinds of matter. He called these hypothetical particles “atoms”, which means indivisible. But he drew his conclusions from abstract philosophical reasoning- there had to be an irreducible state of matter- rather than any kind of observation.
Democritus’ atoms were nothing like the ones that appear in the table of elements: there weren’t 92 naturally occurring kinds, because that contradicts the philosophical ideal of a single basic component of all matter; they combined and uncombined randomly, rather than forming predictable molecules. In fact the only thing they had in common with the things that modern chemistry deals in was that they were extremely small.
When 19th century chemists were working towards the concept of what we now think of as atoms, they believed that they were indivisible: the concept of sub-atomic particles belongs to the 20th century. So when they were looking for a name for their new concept, they borrowed the term from Democritus, because why not?
If you must look for a precursor to modern science in Greek thought, Aristotle, who actually investigated things that is was possible for him to investigate, and recorded his results, is a far better candidate. And I wouldn’t be too sure about him either.
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