Table of Contents

Preface; Part I: The Birth of Atomic Theory; Chapter 1: The Backdrop: The Greek Miracles; Chapter 2: The Foreground: "Arch1e," the Primordial Substance; Chapter 3: The Atomists' Entry onto the Stage; Chapter 4: A Very Particular Atomist: Plato; Chapter 5: The Antiatomists; Chapter 6: Principles and Primordial Substances; Chapter 7: Hindu Atomism; Part II: A Few Scattered Revivals during a Prolonged Suspension (first to fifteenth century); Chapter 8: Early Medieval Christianity vis-a-vis the Atoms; Chapter 9: The Medieval Christian Atomists; Chapter 10: Medieval Jewish Thought vis-a-vis the Atoms; Part III: From the Renaissance to the Age of Enlightenment; Chapter 12: The Resurgence of the Atomic Theory: Christian Atomism; Chapter 13: The Christian Antiatomists; Chapter 14: Boscovitch, or Punctual Atomism; Chapter 15: Berkeley, or Atoms Dismissed; Chapter 16: Kant, an Atomist Turned Antiatomist; Chapter 17: The Rank and File of Atomists; Part IV: The Advent of Scientific Atomism: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries; Chapter 18: A Brief Overview; Chapter 19: The Nineteenth Century: In Search of the Invisible and Indivisible Atom; Chapter 20: The Twentieth Century: From an Invisible and Indivisible Atom to one that is Divisible and Visible; Provisional Epilogue

About the Author

Bernard Pullman was Professor of Quantum Chemistry at the Sorbonne and Director of the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique. He died in 1996. Axel Reisinger is a Senior Principal Physicist at Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company. He lives in Amherst, New Hampshire.