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[Phys-L] Resources about "the atomic hypothesis"...



Greetings!

That line, "the atomic hypothesis" is a pulled from a famous quote by
Feynman:

"If, in some cataclysm, all scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and
only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what
statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe
it is the *atomic hypothesis* (or atomic *fact*, or whatever you wish to
call it) 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 you will see an *enormous* amount of information about the
world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied."

Taken from here <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman>, in this
case.

I am planning to give a talk to an honors class about this idea and about
how humans live on the wrong scale to be able to perceive this easily. As
part of the talk I need to supply some kind of reading/viewing material for
the students to engage with before hand.

Does anyone know of a good lay-person level discussion of this in any
format? Some rudimentary web searching didn't get me anywhere.

Thanks for any suggestions you might have.

Jeff

--
Jeff Loats, Ph.D. | Associate Professor
Metropolitan State University of Denver | Department of Physics
Office: NC 3123F
Phone: 303-900-2175
Email: jloats1@msudenver.edu or jeff.loats@gmail.com
Website: www.msudenver.edu/physics/loats/

"Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to
think." ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson