Entropy as S = k ln W

Abstract

Greek and Roman philosophers had conceived of atoms, and they developed the idea in more detail than we are usually led to believe. In the thinking of Leukippus and Demokritus in the 5th and 4th century B.C., the atoms of air move in all directions, and only occasionally they change their paths when they hit each other. To the ancients this fairly modern view implied a kind of determinism, which was incompatible with the idea of God, or gods, playing out their pranks, benevolent or otherwise. Therefore in later times, in the hands of Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) and Lucretius (95–55 B.C.), the atomistic philosophy of the “Natura Rerum” - this is the title of Lucretius’s long poem - adopted an anti-religious and even atheistic flavour, which rendered it politically and socially unacceptable. Therefore atomism faded away, and in the end it came to represent no more than a footnote in ancient philosophy.