Philosophers have been talking about atoms for thousands of years, and most of it turned out to be pointless bullshitting. Then, a few years before 1800, scient

Philosophers have been talking about atoms for thousands of years, and most of it turned out to be pointless bullshitting. Then, a few years before 1800, scientists started using atoms an an explanation for measurable phenomena in chemistry. And that's how scientific theories of atoms came to be: not as hypothetical constructs, but as explanations for something that could be observed.