The Tiny Building Blocks of Everything: Atoms and the Atomic Model

Imagine cutting a piece of gold in half, then in half again, and again — billions of times over. Would you ever reach a piece so small it could not be cut further? Ancient Greek thinkers asked exactly this question around 400 BCE. Democritus guessed the answer was yes, and he called that tiniest piece an 'atomos' — meaning 'uncuttable'. He had no instruments to test his idea, just reasoning. It took over two thousand years for scientists to find real evidence he was on the right track.