Who would have thought that a philosopher who lived in 420 BCE had come up with an idea that there are these tiny, nearly invisible particles that make up everything around us? A man named Democritus who grew up in a very rich city called Abdera located in Thrace did just that. He came up with an atomic model and theory of the atom far before the atom would be conceptualized and discovered. This theory would also tell scientists hundreds of years later come up with the modern atomic theory: "Democritus thinks that the nature of the eternal existents consists in minute substances infinite in number. To accommodate them, he assumes that there is an infinitely large place, different from them. He calls this place “void” and “nothing” and “infinite,” and he calls each of the substances “thing,” “solid,” and “being.” He thinks that these substances are too small to be perceived by us, that they have all kinds of forms and shapes, and are variously sized. What he is trying to communicate to us is that everything around us is composed of atoms, which are tiny and inseparable. So what was his vision of an atom? His atoms had three basic qualities: shape, position and arrangement. The fact that atoms all differ in size allows them to move chaotically and then stick to one another to create a material. For different surfaces and objects the atoms would be composed of an assortment of different shaped atoms. For example water has fluid characteristics while concrete is solid. Water can be moved through while the atoms in concrete are not separable. Why? The atoms in water according to Democritus would be much more slippery and allow more movement of the atoms. The atoms in the concrete hit and lock into each other to form a solid, thus making it very difficult to go through. One of the teachings in the basic atomic theory that I found a little hard to understand was his theory on void. The void is an important part of th