But people get credit for scientific discoveries made before the technology to verify them existed all the time. Peter Higgs predicted the Higgs field in 1964 a

But people get credit for scientific discoveries made before the technology to verify them existed all the time. Peter Higgs predicted the Higgs field in 1964 and won the Nobel Prize for it in 2013, after it was detected. The reason why the Prize wasn't awarded until 2013 is that it could have been otherwise; in a universe in which the laws of physics were different, the Higgs field might well have gone the way of supersymmetry. Likewise, Democritus correctly described matter as consisting of fundamental particles too small to see in 400 B.C., but verification wouldn't happen for over a millennium. Democritus still deserves credit for this observation.