It is safe to say that there is no more romantic story in the history of science than that of the origin and development of the atomic theory of matter. Dr. Robert A. Millikan has said that the physical principles laid down by Leucippus in the fifth century before our era might, with a few modifications and omissions, “almost pass muster today” (“The Electron,” Page 7). The importance to modern students of sound knowledge of the teachings of the ancient Atomists was emphasized by Sir William Osler (1829-1919), who even went so far as to say that “the student of physics may know Crookes’ tubes and their relation to Roentgen, but he cannot have a true conception of the atomic theory without a …
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