Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

Alchemy had originally sought to study changes that could
be created from things in nature, such as metals. It later
became associated with the supernatural—a door to powers
beyond nature.
later generations were sensitive about their status as rigorous
researchers. Science is empirical, and because chemistry is a
science, it should deal only with that which could be observed
and measured.
For 2,000 years after the high point of classical Greece, Aristotle’s
were combinations of the fundamental properties of hot/cold
and dry/wet. When combinations were mixed appropriately and
subjected to various conditions, we could create new combinations
in well-documented, predictable ways.
Leucippus and Democritus had advanced an atomistic picture of
the world in ancient Greece, but it was rejected. The word atom
comes from a Greek word meaning “uncuttable” because atoms
were thought of as indivisible particles bouncing around in a void.
This was the reality the ancient atomists put forward: that the world
No one had ever seen these little bits, nor could the atomists
provide any way to isolate them. The nothingness seemed to
but continuous.
Further, no matter how small a thing is, there seemed to be
no reason to think that it could not be cut in half. Classical
opponents threw a range of objections at the atomists, whose
account seemed no more explanatory than Aristotle’s.
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