Word: democritus
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...place itself." When he hears Herodotus lecture at the Odeon, Cyrus decides that the Greek historian has concocted a thoroughly slanted account of the so-called Persian Wars and that it is up to him to set the record straight. Because he has gone blind, Cyrus enlists his nephew Democritus as amanuensis. "So make yourself comfortable," he tells the young man. "I have a long memory, and I shall indulge...
...subjected to such eclectic scrutiny. Gass hoards azure words and holds them up to the light: "Blue poplar. Blue palm ... the blue lucy is a healing plant. Blue John is skim milk. Blue backs are Confederate bills. Blue bellies are yankee boys." He squints at past authorities on physics (Democritus, Aristotle, Galen), the bet- ter to glimpse the essence of this protean color in the corner of an eye. The mystery remains, more mysterious because Gass so thoroughly exposes its complexities. Yet the humanist does not visit nature for facts but for creative suggestions, and these Gass offers in abun...
...1950s. If one is to search any farther back for a causative scientific theory, one must not be so shortsighted as to focus on 1917. The actual origin of the theory that made the laser possible must be credited to the Greek scientists Leucippus (fl. 5th century B.C.) and Democritus (460-370 B.C.), who originated the atomic theory and also coined the word atom (Greek for not + cutting, indivisible...
Always seeking harmony, man sees the universe-for a few brief moments-as a pleasingly simple machine. Then curiosity about the nature of matter gets the better of him. Democritus conceived matter as only a whirl of tiny, indivisible units called atoms. Plato disagreed, saw it as a symmetrical expression of mathematical relations between five basic structures. Then came the theory of light radiating in continuous waves. German Physicist Max Planck overturned that in 1900; he said energy comes in discontinuous particles-or quanta-and Einstein followed him with the idea that light can be thought of as both particle...
...massed traps-so that each sprung trap would fire two balls to spring two more traps-the screen erupted into a chaos of snaps, pings and pongs. The mousetraps were the brightest touch in a lucid, hour-long primer, mostly in cartoons, tracing the story of atomic energy from Democritus to Rickover. The title ominously suggested that the show might smack more of Pluto than plutonium, but apart from small blemishes, e.g., giving a Russian accent to the villainous genie in the illustrative fable of the genie-in-the-vessel, the lesson was straightforward, cleverly taught and free...