АТОМИСТИКА

Atomistics

The theory of the discrete structure of matter (from atoms and other microparticles). Atomistics was first formulated in the ancient Indian philosophical theories of Naya and Vaisakha, but was formulated more fully and consistently in the philosophy of Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. Atoms were regarded as the ultimate, indivisible, tiniest, in substance infinitely small particles. They differ in weight, velocity, and mutual disposition in bodies, owing to which different properties arise. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, atomistics was elaborated in the writings of Galileo, Newton, Lomonosov, Dalton, Butlerov, Mendeleev, Boyle, Avogadro, and others, and became the physico-chemical theory of the structure of matter.

Atomistics has almost always been a basis for materialist conceptions of the world. The old atomistics, however, was to a considerable extent metaphysical, since the idea of discreteness was made absolute and the presence of an ultimate, unchanging state of matter, the "primary bricks" of the world edifice, was recognized. Modern atomistics recognizes a multiplicity of molecules, atoms, "elementary" particles, and other microobjects in the structure of matter, their infinite complexity and their faculty for conversion from one form into another. The existence of various discrete microobjects is regarded by atomistics as a manifestation of the law of the transition from quantitative to qualitative changes; the reduction of distances in space is due to the transition to qualitatively new forms of matter. Modern atomistics considers matter to be not only discrete but also continuous. The forces of interaction between microparticles are carried across continuous fields—electromagnetic, nuclear, etc., which are inseverably connected with the "elementary" particles. The spread of interaction in the fields occurs in the form of immediate action (action, immediate and at a distance). Modern atomistics denies the existence of ultimate, unchanging matter and proceeds from the recognition of the quantitative infinity of matter.