40 Fun Facts About Democritus

Which nickname did the ancient world give Democritus for his outlook on human affairs?

The laughing philosopher was his ancient tag, yet the one surviving line of his that mentions laughter says human misfortunes call for tears instead.

According to an ancient report, what did Plato wish to do with every book Democritus had written?

Plato wanted to burn them all, the report goes, until two Pythagoreans pointed out that the books were already too widely circulated for it to work.

Legend says Democritus deliberately ruined what, so nothing could distract him from study?

His eyesight was the supposed sacrifice, but the tale is generally treated as the invention of a later age that was fond of colourful anecdotes.

By one account, the dying Democritus outlasted a three-day festival by inhaling steam from what?

Hot loaves, held to his nostrils each day, supposedly kept him alive so his sister could attend the Thesmophoria; he then let his life go without pain.

A crater in the far north of which world carries the name of Democritus?

The Moon carries his name on a crater in its far north, given by Giovanni Riccioli in 1651 under a naming system that is still the standard for lunar features.

Democritus named his tiniest particles with the Greek word atomos, which literally means what?

Uncuttable is the literal meaning, a name that stuck even after modern physics showed atoms can be split into protons, neutrons and electrons.

Democritus's home city was a byword among ancient Greeks and Romans for which trait of its people?

Stupidity was the stock joke about his fellow townsfolk: the Philogelos, a Greek joke book of the 4th century AD, gives them a whole chapter as literal-minded fools.

Which future revolutionary wrote his 1841 doctoral thesis comparing Democritus with a later atomist?

Karl Marx submitted the thesis to the University of Jena and dedicated it to Ludwig von Westphalen, his mentor and future father-in-law.

Democritus reportedly said he visited which famous city and nobody there knew him?

Athens ignored him, by his own account, though one ancient writer insisted he never went at all because he thought the great city beneath his notice.

Studying in a garden room, Democritus reportedly failed to notice which animal tied up beside him?

An ox, brought by his father for sacrifice, stood tethered there for a considerable time before Democritus was roused and told about it.

Democritus is classed as coming 'before' which philosopher, though he outlived him by decades?

Socrates was put to death in 399 BC, while Democritus lived on until about 370 BC, which is why scholars call the 'pre-Socratic' label chronologically inaccurate.

Which rival philosopher wrote a now-lost monograph on Democritus and preserved much of his thought?

Aristotle is the best surviving witness to his ideas, and even as their chief critic he praised Democritus for arguing in the way a natural philosopher should.

Democritus taught that only two things are truly real: atoms and what else?

The void, plain empty space, gave his atoms room to move, and he imagined countless worlds scattered through it, some of them with no sun at all.

Democritus inherited part of his wealthy father's estate; what did he reportedly spend it all on?

Foreign travel swallowed the lot: as the third son he reportedly chose the smaller share of the estate because it came in money he could take on the road.

Democritus is said to have gone to which country to learn geometry from its priests?

Egypt held him for five years by one account, and he praised the knowledge of its mathematicians while insisting he was in no way their inferior.

Democritus held that which feature of the night sky was really the glow of a great many stars?

The Milky Way stayed a matter of argument for some two thousand years, until Galileo's telescope resolved the band of light into individual stars in 1610.

Which English chemist revived Democritus's atom in the early 1800s with a theory of atomic weights?

John Dalton gave chemistry's newly measured particles the ancient name, and his method of calculating their relative weights made molecular formulas possible.

Democritus declared he would rather discover one true cause than possess the kingdom of which land?

Persia could not tempt him: he made the discovery of causes the highest aim of inquiry and called the everyday notion of chance a cover for human ignorance.

Democritus developed atomism with which teacher, traditionally credited as the theory's founder?

Leucippus left so little behind that all his writing is lost except one sentence, and a later Greek philosopher even claimed he had never existed.

Democritus came from which Greek city on the coast of Thrace, also home to the lyric poet Anacreon?

Abdera is honoured through its most famous son: the university serving that corner of Greece is named the Democritus University of Thrace.

Which later philosopher adopted Democritus's atoms but added a random 'swerve' to allow free will?

Epicurus picked up the theory at one remove, from a teacher named Nausiphanes who followed Democritus, and argued that without the swerve every act would be fixed by cause and effect.

Which Roman poet put the atomism Democritus pioneered into Latin verse in On the Nature of Things?

Lucretius filled some 7,400 hexameter lines with atoms, and a much-doubted ancient note claims he wrote them between bouts of madness brought on by a love potion.

Painters often pair Democritus with which gloomy thinker, shown in tears beside him?

Heraclitus weeps over human folly in the pairing, which Bramante painted in 1486; Montaigne later wrote an essay on the two men and sided with Democritus.

Archimedes says Democritus first stated which solid has a third of a matching cylinder's volume?

A cone was the case Democritus stated without a rigorous proof; Eudoxus supplied one some fifty years later, and it survives in Euclid's Elements.

According to Democritus, what did some atoms have on their surfaces that let them cling together?

Tiny hooks and barbs let atoms tangle when they met, his way of explaining why some compounds hold together instead of flying apart.

A Democritus maxim warns against which life choice, since doing it well takes great trouble?

Having children also risked what the maxim calls the cruellest of all pains, seeing them grow up badly; his ethics survive mostly as blunt sayings of this kind.

Democritus's rich father reportedly hosted which invading king as his army marched through Thrace?

Xerxes was on his way to invade Greece in 480 BC, and is said to have left learned men behind who taught the young Democritus theology and astronomy.

In 1961 Greece gave the name of Democritus to a national centre for which kind of research?

Nuclear research for peaceful purposes was the founding aim of the Demokritos centre, whose 5 MW research reactor is the only one in Greece.

Democritus reportedly spotted which future sophist working as a porter and took him in as a pupil?

Protagoras had tied his load of wood so neatly, the story goes, that Democritus judged him a mathematical prodigy and taught him philosophy.

Democritus reportedly tested his sense-impressions by seeking solitude in which eerie places?

Tombs offered silence and solitude; the same hunger for quiet had him wall off a little room in the family garden and shut himself inside to work.

Democritus's atomism answered Parmenides and Zeno, who argued which everyday thing was impossible?

Motion was ruled out by their logic, so the atomists turned the argument round: that things move is an observable fact, so the logic had to give way.

Which Oxford scholar published The Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621 as 'Democritus Junior'?

Robert Burton opens the book with a satirical preface of roughly 200 pages addressed from Democritus to the reader, and his epitaph names him by the pseudonym.

Democritus said sweet, bitter, hot, cold and colour exist only by what, the reality being atoms?

Convention was his word for qualities that depend on the perceiver, not the thing, which is how he explained honey tasting bitter to people who are ill.

Democritus was forty years younger than which thinker, whose ideas on the sun he called stolen?

Anaxagoras reportedly did not take to the younger man, and Democritus repaid him by pulling his views on the cosmos and on mind to pieces.

According to Democritus, what do objects constantly give off that enters the eye and lets us see them?

Thin films of atoms, which he called eidola, shrink on their way to the eye, and he used giant versions of them to explain how people came to picture the gods.

With his inheritance spent, Democritus reportedly won 500 talents from his city by doing what?

Reading his book aloud, the Great Diacosmos, was his answer to a law that barred anyone who had squandered a patrimony from burial in his native city.

Which Greek word, usually translated as cheerfulness, did Democritus use for the highest good?

Euthymia meant a soul that lives calmly and steadily, untroubled by fear or superstition, and he insisted it was not the same thing as pleasure.

An old analogy likened Democritus's atoms to what, since a few shapes make endless combinations?

Alphabet letters differ in shape, order and orientation, as A differs from N, AN from NA and N from Z, and his atoms were said to differ in just those ways.

Books falsely credited to Democritus in the first century AD became founding texts of which art?

Alchemy counts these 'Four Books' among its most ancient works; later Greek practitioners prized them, cited them often and wrote commentaries on them.

Democritus held that the soul was built from the same fine, mobile atoms as which classical element?

Fire atoms are spherical and readily mobile, which suited a soul thought to set the body going, and life was already associated with heat.