Matter is composed of indivisible building blocks. This idea was recorded as early as the fifth century BCE by Leucippus and Democritus. The Greeks called these particles atomos, meaning indivisible, and the modern word “atom” is derived from this term. Democritus proposed that different types and combinations of these particles were responsible for the various forms of matter. However, these ideas were largely ignored at the time, as most philosophers favored the Aristotelian perspective.
