ABSTRACT
The Vaisesika’s atomic hypothesis does contain some scientifically salient conjectures. The number of molecules in a “gramme molecule” was named after him by Dmitri Mendeleev, whose periodic table of chemical elements underlines that the properties of elements are governed by their constituent atoms. The next stage in the development of atomic theory is closely connected to the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by Henri Becquerel. For Werner Heisenberg, the description of the invisible subatomic world could only be abstract, in other words mathematical. Applications of quantum mechanics have from the beginning been numerous and wide ranging, confirming its satisfactoriness – both of the mathematics and the empirical predictions of its interpretation. Fossils continued to be discussed by scholars from the Arabic empires, notably Alberuni, who introduced the rigour of mathematised physics to geological studies. Quantitative methods for estimating the age of geological records that took into account factors such as sedimentation and salination rates had started to be elaborated.
