ATOMS AND MOLECULES
Around 500 BC, Indian philosopher Maharishi Kanad proposed that matter could be divided into smaller particles until a point where it could no longer be divided. He called these smallest particles Parmanu.
Pakudha Katyayama expanded on this idea, suggesting that these particles exist in a combined form, creating various forms of matter.
Around the same time, Greek philosophers Democritus and Leucippus suggested that if matter is divided continuously, a stage would be reached where the particles could no longer be divided. Democritus named these indivisible particles atoms, meaning indivisible.
These early ideas were based on philosophical reasoning without experimental evidence.