Why could the Greek philosophers not develop a real theory about atoms?

Answer 1

Well, Democritus did have a basic understanding that there must be a particle which could not be broken down any further and still be the same element. I imagine they didn't develop any really sophisticated concept because of their limitations in observation and lack of specialized equipment.

Answer 2

The weakness of the Greek philosophers was that they didn't experiment. You can't work out a detailed atomic theory by reason alone. So it wasn't until experimental chemists like Davy, Priestly, Lavoisier, Dalton and Mendeleef came along 2000 years later that the nature of atoms came to be understood.

Answer 3

Indeed Democritus and some other classical natural philosophers developed surprisingly sophisticated ideas around their suspicion that there was something significant about the boundary encountered at the "small" end of the scale of maginitudes.

It just took several more centuries for the concepts to be developed that were required to observe and measure at the small end and to observe the electrical, magnetic and gravitational characteristics of tiny particles.

Answer 4

Democritus' theory was "real." It did exist, and people did study it. The reasoning, however, is not quite the truth, which we could only know today by technology Democritus' age never thought of. He's most likely the only reason we know today. If he hadn't made reason for study, then all the theories about atoms would be much more limited than today because nobody would have sparked the curiousity.

Answer 5

b/c they had no electronic microscopes and they couldn't look at them and prove it

Answer 6

They couldn't see them.

Answer 7

How could they prove it?