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An atom is the fundamental building block of Chemistry. It is smallest constituent unit of a matter that has the properties of a chemical element.

How do scientists know that atoms exist?

Earlier on (4th century), it was believed by some that there is no end to smallness. For instance, if you are to chop an apple to smallest unit, you will keep chopping on and on with no end to smallness. However, the concept did not sit well with Democritus (An Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic Philosopher). He insisted that, at a point, you will reach some particles so small and so indestructible that they could no longer be divided any further. He called them ATOMOS (uncuttable).However, Democritus has no evidence to back up his claim.

Fast forward to the Arabic world, Jabir Ibn Hayyan and co proposed that raw materials could be divided into multiple pure substances. For example, fruits can be fermented to derive water, sugar, pulp, alcohol and acetic acid. A French couple, Marie and Antoine Lavoisier in 1700AD, studied and build upon the works of Jabir. They proposed that even the pure substances can further be divided through chemical reaction e.g water can be boiled to steam or split into two pure gases hydrogen and oxygen. However, no matter how hard the couple tried , they could not reduced hydrogen or oxygen into simpler gases. They concluded that those gases must be elements.