The Atomic Idea

Abstract

If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next gener-ation of creatures, what a statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms–little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied. R.P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Abstract In this chapter the elementary particles from which all things are made are presented together with the interactions which bring them together. The latter are transmitted by indivisible particle-like entities. The so-called Feynman dia-grams describing the various interactions are introduced.