Democritus biography facts of life
The facts of life cast...
Biography
Democritus of Abdera is best known for his atomic theory but he was also an excellent geometer.Democritus biography facts of life
Very little is known of his life but we know that Leucippus was his teacher.
Democritus certainly visited Athens when he was a young man, principally to visit Anaxagoras, but Democritus complained how little he was known there.
He said, according to Diogenes Laertius writing in the second century AD [5]:-
I came to Athens and no one knew me.Democritus was disappointed by his trip to Athens because Anaxagoras, then an old man, had refused to see him.
As Brumbaugh points out in [3]:-
How different he would find the trip today, where the main approach to the city from the northeast runs past the impressive "Democritus Nuclear Research Laboratory".Certainly Democritus made many journeys other than the one to Athens.
Russell in [9] writes:-
He travelled widely in southern and eastern lands in search of knowledge, he perhaps spent a considerable time in Egypt, and he c