Parmenides of Elea (515-450 BCE)
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The man who argued that change is impossible — and forced physics to answer him. Being is one, ungenerated, and unchanging; what looks like change is only appearance. Atomism was built to get around the problem he set.
The argument that forced atomism:
Parmenides argued that nothing comes from nothing and nothing passes into nothing — so coming-to-be and passing-away cannot be real, and reality is one changeless Being; the world of change our senses report is mere appearance. To save those appearances without breaking his rule, Leucippus and Democritus split reality into atoms (what is) and void (what is not): nothing is created or destroyed, things only rearrange. Parmenides is the problem; atomism is the response.
