“A building-block term first-admissible; /
To everyday vision, invisible, /
The atom in logic /
Most etymologic /
Takes name from the Greek: ‘indivisible.’”
The 15 April 2025 Bluesky poem explored the etymology for the word “atom.” As noted last week, this essay and the next few will build primarily on the information from Isaac Asimov’s Words of Science and the History Behind Them, written in 1959.
“A building-block term first-admissible; /
To everyday vision, invisible…”
In chemistry, we see atoms as the “building blocks” that lead in their combination to chemical compounds.
The vocabulary term atom has an intriguingly complex history, originating millennia ago in classical history with the Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus. They postulated the existence of tiny particles making up all materials, far beyond limits of “everyday vision,” and deemed these atomos, for “indivisible” or “uncuttable.”
In some ways, their discussions seem unusual today. Leucippus and Democritus thought that the properties of different materials would depend on the shape of the atoms: for instance, that hot and cold substances derived their hotness and coldness from their component atoms’ shapes. However, the idea of everyday materials consisting of unseen, tiny pieces (also discussed in ancient philosophies elsewhere in the world) was itself a major insight.
“The atom in logic /
Most etymologic /
Takes name from the Greek: ‘indivisible.’”
When John Dalton proposed his atomic theory centuries later, he used this Greek term. He stated that each element was composed of a unique type of atom: i.e., an atom of carbon would be fundamentally distinct from an atom of gold. His use of the Greek term was logical in terms of his understanding of the atom at the time (“logic/ most etymologic”), as the smallest possible piece of matter.
The current understanding of matter involves tinier pieces still: chemists consider the atom as consisting of protons, neutrons, and electrons, while physicists would discuss even smaller constituent parts.
This link, from the blog Compound Interest, provides a superb visual overview of what scientists have meant by the word “atom,” from Dalton’s 1803 theory onward.
Chemphasis 