Dividing Matter

Matter cannot be divided infinite number of times.

For example, if we keep chopping a log of wood into smaller and smaller pieces, then we will reach a point when the wood will not be divisible any further. Minute particles of wood will remain and these will not be visible to the naked eye. This is true for all forms of matter.The same was believed by the early Indian and Greek philosophers. In India, around 500 BC, an Indian philosopher named Maharishi Kanad called matter as padarth and these smallest particles (atoms) as ‘parmanu’. The word ‘atom’ is derived from the Greek word ‘atomos’ which means ‘indivisible’. It was the Greek philosopher Democritus who coined the term. However, for these ancient thinkers, the idea of the minute indivisible particle was a purely philosophical consideration.

By the end of the eighteenth century, scientists had begun to distinguish between elements and compounds. Two French chemists named Antoine Lavoisier and Joseph Proust observed that elements combine in definite proportions to form compounds. On the basis of this observation, each of them proposed an important law of chemical combination. The laws proposed by them helped Dalton formulate his atomic theory.

Dalton’s Atomic Theory

In the early nineteenth century, an English chemist named …

To view the complete topic, please