![]() 548/545 BC) Īttempted to explain natural phenomena without recourse to mythology Debate over who merits the title can be perennial.įor systemic use of experimentation in science and contributions to scientific method, physics and observational astronomy Such people are generally regarded to have made the first significant contributions to and/or delineation of that field they may also be seen as " a" rather than " the" father or mother of the field. The following is a list of people who are considered a "father" or "mother" (or "founding father" or "founding mother") of a scientific field. But the credit of developing these ideas further, goes to the Greeks and other western philosophers as Indian theories about the atom are greatly abstract and enmeshed in philosophy as they were based on logic and not on personal experience or experimentation.See also: List of people considered father or mother of a field It remains a fact that Indian ideas about atom are the oldest. Thus it is quite possible that the Greeks borrowed the ideas about atom from Indian philosophers in the 4th century B.C. These Indian ideas about atom and atomic physics could have been transmitted to the west during the contacts created between India and the west by the invasion of Alexander. Greeks came into India only in the 4th century B.C. This Indian concept of the atom was developed independently and prior to the development of the idea in the Greco-Roman world. Three different schools of thought Vaisesika, Jainist, and Buddhist came to similar but slightly different conclusions.Īnother Indian philosopher, Pakudha Katyayana who lived around the 5th or 4th century B.C. and was a contemporary of Gautama Buddha, had also propounded ideas about the atomic constitution of the material world.īetween the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, the atom is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 8, Verse 9) Reference to matter consisting of atoms appear also in Jainism School and Buddhist School. He wrote a book on his research “ Vaisheshik Darshan“. People started calling him “ Acharya” – mean Teacher and became known as “ The Father of Atomic theory.” Kanad founded the Vaisheshika school of philosophy where he taught his ideas about the atom and the nature of the universe. Kanad also put forward the idea that atoms could be combined in various ways to produce chemical changes in presence of other factors such as heat. ![]() ![]() Kanad further held that atoms of same substance combined with each other to produce dvyanuka ( biatomic molecules) and tryanuka ( triatomic molecules). He called that indivisible matter Parmanu (atom). From this moment, Kanad conceptualized the idea of a particle that could not be divided any further. This theory occurred to him while Kanad was walking with food in his hand, breaking it into small pieces when he realised that he was unable to divide the food into any further parts, it was too small. When matter is divided and subdivided, we reach a stage beyond which no division is possible, the indivisible element of matter is Parmanu (Atom). Kanad explained that this indivisible, indestructible atom cannot be sensed through any human organ. According to the material universe is made up of Parmanu (Atoms). Kanad was the first person in the world to discuss atoms and molecules. It was Kanad who first propounded that the Parmanu (Atoms) was an indestructible particle of matter. ![]() He told them that individual grains in themselves may seem worthless, but a collection of some hundred grains make up a person’s meal, the collection many meals would feed an entire family and ultimately the entire mankind was made of many families, thus even a single grain of rice was as important as all the valuable riches in this world. Since then people started calling him Kanad, as “ Kan” in Sanskrit means “ Smallest particle“. Crowd gathered around him & one person asked him why was he collecting the grains even beggars wouldn’t like to touch these. Everybody thought he was insane as he was from a good family. He started collecting the grains of rice. ![]() Once he went on a pilgrimage, he saw thousands of pilgrims littered the town roads & the banks of river Ganga with flowers and rice grains which they offered at the temple. ![]()
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