Democritus vs. Shroedinger

Democritus and Shroedinger were both very well known scientists in their time, and both did a lot of work with atoms and matter...., but they had very different methods when it came to the use of the scientific method.  


Scientific Method (from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml) 
~Ask a Question
~Do Background Research
~Construct a Hypothesis
~Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
~Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
~Communicate Your Results


Ok, so a little bit about Democritus...


He was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived around 430 BCE.  He had an idea while he was tearing  a piece of bread that there would be a piece that couldn't be torn any smaller.  His idea was that the definition of an atom was "uncuttable."  He thought that, for example, if you cut a tree into several different pieces, there would eventually be a piece of tree that couldn't be cut any more (he was later proved wrong because the tree would just be divided into millions of atoms.)  He also thought that the strength of an object had to do with the atoms and how they were shaped/arranged.  He thought that atomos (what he named atoms) were everywhere and there were tons of them.  


And now a little about Shroedinger...


Shroedinger was a theoretical physicist who was from Austria.  He was famous for laying the foundation for "quantam physics."  Another famous thing that he did was an experiment where he put a cat in a box with poison in it and asked if the cat was dead or not.... it was a trick question because you didn't know for sure, but could only hypothesize (it is still being debated today).  He stressed the importance to not only find out how electrons move, but to figure out where we could find them.


Both Democritus and Shroedinger.....


Democritus didn't exactly use the scientific method in his idea/hypothesis.  For example, he did have a question about the smallest piece of bread, but he didn't do an experiment or background research.  Instead of doing research and an experiment, he assumed that there was a piece of bread that couldn't be cut any smaller, and that atoms were uncuttable.  Shroedinger, on the other hand, did use the scientific method.  He had a question, carried it out with an experiment (Shroedinger's cat), and then analyzed the data.  Part of the reason why Democritus didn't do an experiment was because he lived in a very early time period, and maybe didn't have the right materials.  Shroedinger also had many other discoveries by other scientists before his time (e.g.- Thomson, Dalton, Rutherford)  and he had all of that research to base his experiment on. 


All of this information was found on Wikipedia and Mr. Harrelson's slideshow :)