Stone to Silicon

Math & science · c. 420 BCE

Atomism

Democritus proposes that everything is made of indivisible particles moving in a void.

Leucippus and Democritus argued that matter cannot be divided forever. The idea survived through Epicurus and Lucretius and was revived as a testable chemical theory by Dalton in 1808.

See it in the living treeWikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

What it led to 1