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itself?”
    To get some insight into the process of the exploration of nature, let usask, what deep questions were our ancient ancestors asking over the past three millennia? Like newborn babies, our ancient ancestors awoke with rational minds and conscious awareness into a world with a “reality” of its own. It was difficult initially for them to shake off primitive prejudices, notions and fears, unwarranted or otherwise, about things that seemed to happen or were only imagined to happen. There was an internal reality to the human mind in the early dawn of intelligence, voices that spoke in the night, apparent demigods lurking behind every tree, making all things, good or bad, happen. This led to peculiar notions, for example, that one must dance in strangely ostentatious ways, while wearing bizarre make-up and costumes, in order to make good things happen, perhaps to make it rain. Indeed, most appeals for divine intervention are just a variation on a rain dance and are motivated by something like the mortal fear of crop failure. It was difficult to discard that and to create a distilled “objective reality.”
    But gradually there emerged a coherent understanding and philosophy of objective reality. Questions could now be posed and answers sought without reference to mythical beings and magic, without the fear of offending the particular gods that brought the rains. One learned to do “experiments.” And one learned that the reproducibility of an experimental result was far more important than the mere opinions of the witch doctors and high priests. Does it really rain when we put on our costumes and dance about? No. But there are certain crops that can grow better in a dry climate than others, and certain clever ways to grow them. At some point the issue of understanding reality became “science.”
    Eventually people asked the deeper questions: “What are all things made of?” “What are their properties?” “How do they interact with one another?” “What are the fundamental laws of nature that govern these objects?” These are practical questions, but they are also the biggest questions. They deal with profound issues: “What constitutes physical reality?” and “What is the nature of physical substance?” and “What is physical force, motion, space, and time?” The answers hold deep secrets, and perhaps the key to a better fire, a better sword, a cure for illness, perhaps a way to make the rains come or prevent them from leaving, or to make the best of what the conditions are, and how not to mess things up. By the end of the nineteenth century, here on Earth, the question: “What is the nature of matter?” was framed within the province of chemistry: All matter isformed from the basic atoms that comprise the chemical Periodic Table of the Elements—where “periodic”’ refers to their chemical properties. The elements form chemical compounds and enter into chemical reactions according to specific empirical rules. The laws of physics are those of Galileo and Newton, embellished by Maxwell, Gibbs, Boltzmann, etc.
    Many thinkers from antiquity had previously developed a rudimentary concept of “elements.” These would be the basic, irreducible components out of which things are made. Among the earliest ideas were the so-called “classic elements,” as described by Plato: “Air,” “Fire,” “Earth,” and “Water,” as well as mysterious “Quintessence.” The latter was considered to be an all-universe-filling “ether.” This view of the nature of matter reduced every question to the five classic elements and offered a (very) tiny hint of an underlying order, but it certainly didn't get into the details. It was more of a dismissive answer to questions about the inner nature of matter.
    Other philosophers of antiquity, however, were actually quite modern from our perspective. The foremost of these was Democritus of Athens , one of most advanced thinkers in all of human history,