Lesson plan based on Alexander Coin
Research ancient texts and compare ancient Greek atomic theories, as used in the production of silver, to modern theories.
Skills and Focus: Chemistry
Subject Area: Science
Thematic Connection: Literature, Connecting Past and Present
Grade Level: Secondary School
Time Needed: 120 minutes
Objectives
• Understand the smelting technology of ancient Greece.
• Understand the human cost of "low-tech" production in Greece.
• Compare and contrast Greek atomic and molecular theories with modern theories.
Instructional Materials Needed
Print Resources:
• Healey, J. F. Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978.
• Tylecote, R. A History of Metallurgy. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976.
• Kirk, G. S., A. Raven and M. Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. pp. 402-33.
Activity
Step 1: Research and discuss in class the production of silver in ancient Greece using either Healey or Tylecote.
Step 2: Distribute the texts from Aristotle, Aetius, and Simplicius. After students have read the texts, discuss the Greek theories of atoms, based on the ideas of Democritus.
Critical Thinking Ask students to
• compare the Greek and contemporary theories, explaining how the Greek theory of atoms is similar to the modern theories, especially with regard to the physical form of atoms and their shape. (Explain to students that the notion of shape applies to molecules as well as atoms.)
• explain how the atoms combine with each other.
• explain how the Greek theory might explain chemical reactions, like those that happen as part of smelting.
Goals
This activity meets Illinois State Goal 13: Have a working knowledge of the relationships among science, technology, and society in historical and contemporary contexts.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, A4.985b4 (Kirk et al., p. 414)
Leucippus and his associate Democritus hold that the elements are the full and the void; they call them what is and what is not respectively. What is full is solid, what is not is void and rare. Since the void exists no less than the body, it follows that what is not exists no less than what is. The two together are the material causes of existing things. And just as those who make the underlying substance one generate other things by its modifications, and postulate rarefaction and condensation as the origin of those modifications in the same way that these men too say that the differences [in their elements] are the causes of other things. They hold that these differences are three–shape, arrangement and position; being, they say, differs only in "rhythm, touching and turning" of which rhythm is shape, touching is arrangement and turning is position; for A differs from N in shape, AN from NA in arrangement, and Z from N in position….
Aetius, I, 3, 18 (from Kirk et al., p. 421)
Democritus named two [properties of atoms], size and shape; but Epicurus added a third to these, namely weight…. Democritus says the primary bodies (that is, the solid atoms) do not possess weight but move in the infinite as the result of striking one another….
Simplicius, de caelo 242, 21 (Kirk et al., 425)
As they [the atoms] move they collide and become entangled in such a way as to cling in close contact to one another, but not so as to form one substance of them in reality of any kind whatever; for it is very simple minded to suppose that two or more could ever become one. The reason he gives for atoms staying together for a while is the intertwining and mutual hold of the primary bodies; for some of them are angular, some hooked, some concave, some convex, and indeed with countless other differences; so he thinks they cling to each other and stay together until such time as stronger necessity comes from the surrounding and shakes and scatters them apart….
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