THE QUANTUM – THE INDIVISIBLE SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLE

Back in ancient Greece the philosopher Democritus was the first to propose that the material world is composed of tiny invisible particles that he baptized as “atoms”, which means non-divisible; to which Plato raised an objection that forecast, with chilling clarity the Quantum Physics. According to the argument of Plato, if we think that an atom is one thing, then it should occupy some space and can therefore be cut in two, to occupy a space even smaller. Nothing that can be split may be the smallest element of the material world.

With this impeccable argument Plato demolished the possibility that the basic bricks of nature are solid particles, including the atom. According to Plato the world arises from perfect invisible forms, similar to geometric bodies’ perfect shapes. Nobody can say for certain from what a quark (quantum) is made but decidedly, it is not a piece of solid matter, its constituent elements may well be simple vibration with the possibility of becoming matter and, consequently will be smaller than the small.

The QUANTUM is the indivisible sub-atomic particle that as observed, is matter (particle) or energy (wave-vibration). The Photon (light), Electron (e-), Phonon (sound), Quark (matter), among others are Quantum; the so called “fundamental Quantum”.