Yeah, this is how the best science books are written IMHO. "First we tried to figure out the properties of matter, then this whole 'atom' thing started making

Yeah, this is how the best science books are written IMHO. "First we tried to figure out the properties of matter, then this whole 'atom' thing started making sense, then we figured out about subatomic particles, then we realized that subatomic particles actually act pretty weird -- so that's quantum mechanics." If you were to just start at quantum mechanics, you'd wonder why the heck everything is so weird and overly complicated.