Greeks discovered the exist of Atom in 500 BC

Nope, he's right. That doesn't demean their postulate in any way. It took almost 2000 years for us to come up with an atomic theory. Only this time it was based on actual experimental evidence.

>hurr durr things is made up by smaller things

literally every retard can come up with something like that

>It took almost 2000 years for us to come up with an atomic theory. Only this time it was based on actual experimental evidence.

No, it took 2000 years to get the technology to falsify their theory.

But that doesn't mean their theory was wrong, you positivist scum.

atomism =/= atomic theory

You know the Quran talks about atoms.

[4:40] GOD does not inflict an atom's weight of injustice. On the contrary, He multiplies the reward manifold for the righteous work, and grants from Him a great recompense.
[10:61] You do not get into any situation, nor do you recite any Quran, nor do you do anything, without us being witnesses thereof as you do it. Not even an atom's weight is out of your Lord's control, be it in the heavens or the earth. Nor is there anything smaller than an atom, or larger, that is not recorded in a profound record.
[34:3] Those who disbelieve have said, "The Hour will never come to pass!" Say, "Absolutely-by my Lord-it will most certainly come to you. He is the Knower of the future. Not even the equivalent of an atom's weight is hidden from Him, be it in the heavens or the earth. Not even smaller than that, or larger (is hidden). All are in a profound record."
[34:22] Say, "Implore the idols you have set up beside GOD. They do not possess as much as a single atom in the heavens, or the earth. They possess no partnership therein, nor does He permit them to be His assistants."
[99:7] Whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it.
[99:8] And whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it.

Even the earliest translators translated it to Atom. It means nothing else but Atom. The theory is that they somehow gained Greek knowledge on atomic theory.

The difference between them is spurious at best, considering they arrived at atomism by using reason.

Are you telling me that atomic physicists in the 20th century didn't use their reason when they created a theory?

>Are you telling me that atomic physicists in the 20th century didn't use their reason when they created a theory?

You could argue that every action comes from reasoning, whether consciously or subconsciously, but I don't want to philosophize on this particular subject.

The point is that the atomic theory was slowly made upon by a myriad of scientists, doing actual experiments, building upon each other's discoveries and improving them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_theory
If you took your time to read the article, you would understand what I mean.

thanks Cenk

I know it did.

But you are essentially being agnostic on whether any kind of reasoning was involved at all, and that essentially nothing can be true unless you have absolute empirical evidence, which is ridiculous, and why I called you positivist.

The objective of science is to explain phenomena in the universe, by critically assessing theories by using reason and falsifying those theories by using testable experiments.

And just because Lucretius and Epicurus didn't have an electron microscope doesn't mean they were wrong, which we now know that they weren't.

Heisenberg was classical trained in philosophy (his mother was a professor of Greek and Latin), and he wrote a book called "Physics and Philosophy" where he speaks of ancient Greek atomism.

On the one hand, he congratulates them on coming up with something that had remarkable similarities to modern atomic theory, on the other hand he asked, did they actually have anything in mind similar to modern atomic theory?

No, he says, probably not, and I think that's accurate. Greek atomism is remarkable but it's not the same as modern atomic theory.

>>Greeks theorized the existance of Atom in 500 BC

The differences are not spurious and you'd have to be uneducated to think otherwise.

The differences are spurious to the degree that science didn't exist as a discipline yet, which is why it's idiotic to talk about someone "discovering" anything, pre-science.

The OP worded himself retardedly, but the Veeky Forums-tier anglophiliac positivist answers in this thread give me a headache.

Greeks had two competing theories about the nature of matter. That at one point it came down to discrete, uncuttable particles or "atoms." Literally "without cuts."

Or, alternatively, everything is "pudding" and can be cut indefinitely.

All this is just a reworking of Zeno's paradoxes. It's applied to dividing matter instead of dividing lengths. It's a kind of thought experiment, based only on logic and supposition. There's no discovery here, or even great thinking.

The ancient Greeks never determined which of these two possibilities it was. They never did any testing to determine which it was. That's because the ancient Greeks had no concept of the scientific method.

>There's no discovery here, or even great thinking.

I doubt they "discovered" atoms in any meaningful way. There was a guy who said if you take a piece of cheese and half it over and over, at some point there is a thing you can't half anymore, and that's an atom. Of course there was no way of proving that at that time and the idea had no meaningful impact on technology or really anything, so in their view it was probably as sensible as lightning being made by Zeus. Sure, why not? Have fun believing in that.

Discovery implies experimentation, which the Greeks certainly could not do from their private teacher's portico
They hypothesized about the existence of the atom, and happened to be sort of correct. This usually applied to any ancient culture "discovering" any deep science: good guesses that were mostly correct.

>Fun fact the first romans was ruled by kings who was black. Tarquinius superbus the last black king of rome was overthrown by the whiteys who ruled rome for a couple of centuries. Until sulla the great black general overthrew the whiteys and exterminated them in the social war. Now blacks was running rome again and a whitey wasnt seen in the region again until it was sacked by alaric and the whiteys eventually killed or sent the black romans to africa. Julius caesar was black

Have you read De Rerum Anima? Clearly not if you think that the Epicurians were pulling these ideas out of thin air. All of the postulates are based on observations of the natural world, and are logically proved. And tell me why you think discovery requires experiment. If I see something occur, whether or not I am the cause of it, I can draw certain conclusions and call them discoveries.

He gets his opinions on Greek philosophy having only read Wikipedia summaries.

You can't possibly think that "discovery" and the essence of the scientific method didn't exist before science as a discipline.

Lucretius: There is a statue next to the town gates which's right hand is touched for good luck on entering and exiting the city. There is no noticeable wear of the bronze each time the hand is touched, but over time, the right hand becomes worn over time. I've discovered that there are particles smaller than can be perceived by human beings.

user, 2000 years later: You didn't "discover" anything because you existed prior to the scientific discipline.

>a guy made a lucky guess in 500 BC

ok ill create a theory for you, there are smaller things than atoms, if someone discovers it in 10000 years, i call dibs on all the credit and glory

Listen up you fucking faggot, I'm sick of retarded replies like this. If you think what I said is wrong, EXPLAIN WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG AND WHY, or don't bother posting at all.

My post is 100% correct, and you're a fucking retard if you think otherwise, but PLEASE fucking post what you think about the matter so I can rip your retarded opinion to shreds.

fucking faggot

you do realize atoms are not in fact indivisible and there are things smaller than atoms, and we've known this for quite a while?

I still get your point and agree with it though.

>Greeks discovered the Earth was round and calculated its circumference with a margin of error between 2-20% (depending on how long you consider a 'stadion') - in the 2nd century BCE.

Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth without leaving Egypt. He knew that at local noon on the summer solstice in Syene (modern Aswan, Egypt), the Sun was directly overhead. He knew this because the shadow of someone looking down a deep well at that time in Syene blocked the reflection of the Sun on the water. He measured the Sun's angle of elevation at noon on the same day in Alexandria. The method of measurement was to make a scale drawing of that triangle which included a right angle between a vertical rod and its shadow. This turned out to be 1/50th of a circle. Taking the Earth as spherical, and knowing both the distance and direction of Syene, he concluded that the Earth's circumference was fifty times that distance.

His knowledge of the size of Egypt was founded on the work of many generations of surveying trips. Pharaonic bookkeepers gave a distance between Syene and Alexandria of 5,000 stadia (a figure that was checked yearly).[16] Some say that the distance was corroborated by inquiring about the time that it took to travel from Syene to Alexandria by camel. Carl Sagan says that Eratosthenes paid a man to walk and measure the distance. Some claim Eratosthenes used the Olympic stade of 176.4 m, which would imply a circumference of 44,100 km, an error of 10%,[16] but the 184.8 m Italian stade became (300 years later) the most commonly accepted value for the length of the stade,[16] which implies a circumference of 46,100 km, an error of 15%.[16] It was unlikely, even accounting for his extremely primitive measuring tools, that Eratosthenes could have calculated an accurate measurement for the circumference of the Earth. He made two important assumptions (neither of which is perfectly accurate):[16][17]

1/2

That the distance between Alexandria and Syene was 5000 stades,
That the Earth was a perfect sphere.

Eratosthenes later rounded the result to a final value of 700 stadia per degree, which implies a circumference of 252,000 stadia, likely for reasons of calculation simplicity as the larger number is evenly divisible by 60.[16] Repeating Eratosthenes' calculation with more accurate data, the result is 40,074 km, which is 66 km different (0.16%) from the currently accepted polar circumference of the Earth.[17]

2/2

Now, this is far more impressive. The idea is simple, but it's a stroke of genius. Eratosthenes is my hero.

What's amazing is that it doesn't even require complex mathematics or tools/technology. Just basic understanding of geometry and a curious mind.