Introduction
The human will to stay alive is nothing short of phenomenal. The harder we work, or workout, the more energy our body produces. Our body bends to adapt to changes in our environment, just as a plant in an enclosed room will grow towards the light coming from the window. If we lift heavy weights, the size of our muscles increase to enable us to lift more. Our body senses our needs and adapts to those needs.
The human body was designed for survival. If we go without food for several hours, our body sends us signals via hunger sensations that we need to put food into the body. If we don’t, at first we start to feel our energy level dropping. But what happens if more than eight hours pass and we still don’t get food? Another survival mechanism kicks in. Our body starts to convert fats into energy, and even burns dead cells, harmful cells, and toxic cells, converting them into energy. This experience has led to knowledge of the health benefits of prolonged fasting, and is yet another marvelous illustration of the human will to stay alive and the body’s amazing survival mechanism.
But infinitely more powerful than the body is the mind. The human mind encompasses the entire body, and has the ability to connect with infinite intelligence. The power of the human body and mind combined has enabled humans to survive disasters, perilous circumstances, and all sorts of catastrophes throughout human history, resulting in 8 billion people still being alive on planet earth despite all the wars, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural and manmade disasters.
Prior to the invention of the atomic bomb, our study of science led us to believe that the smallest, most indivisible particle of matter is the atom. Humans believed that the atom could not be broken down into a smaller unit. Later, we discovered that the atom itself was made up of protons, neutrons, and elections. These subatomic particles still made up what was considered the smallest “building block” of matter, the atom, which was still considered “indivisible.” But after a time, we started to explore the possibility of splitting the atom, a task that was once considered impossible, and when mankind’s back was against the wall, when human survival was threatened with extinction, humans once again did the impossible: we split the atom.
Of course, the story of the atomic bomb is tainted with blood. Because of the human cost, it is nothing to celebrate. But we must look at this in the context of human survival. The Japanese had vowed to keep fighting to the last man, woman, and child. Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was a bid to stop the war and end the senseless and painful loss of lives. It was seen as perhaps the most definite and quickest way to force a surrender from the axis nations.
The axis nations, headed by Hitler, were evil. They yearned for world domination even at the expense of extreme human suffering. They threatened to take away freedom and democracy from the world. It was in this context that those fighting on the side of humanity found their backs against the wall. And with their backs against the wall, mankind once again did the impossible: we split the atom, which was once thought impossible, and created the atomic bomb, which painfully but quickly brought about the end the second world war.
The creation of the atomic bomb, then, demonstrates the indomitable human will to stay alive. It shows just how powerful the human mind is. And this book is written with the hopes of inspiring and encouraging humans who face trials and tribulations: you possess so much power and ability within yourselves to surmount every obstacle and rise above every challenge. If you ever find your back against the wall, remember, you too can do the impossible. You can split the atom, and you can stay alive. Look for your inner strength and the inner genius within you. And most of all, turn to God, who is a real and present help in time of trouble.
Splitting the atom, the human will to stay alive, is a book that sheds light on one of the darkest periods of human history. It aims to bring home from the ashes of despair. It is a story of courage and hope that seeks to remind people that they have what it takes to survive their darkest hour and overcome their most daunting challenges.
The Indivisible Atom
Long before laboratories hummed with machines and equations spilled across chalkboards, there lived dreamers who looked into the world not with instruments, but with wonder. Among these dreamers was a man named Democritus, a Greek philosopher born more than 2,400 years ago, around 460 BCE. He did not have microscopes or particle accelerators. What he had was a mind that dared to ask: What is everything made of? And more boldly still: Can matter be divided forever, or is there a final piece — a smallest thing?
Democritus imagined taking a piece of anything — a stone, a drop of water, a leaf — and cutting it in half. Then cutting that half again, and again, and again. Surely, he thought, you could not divide something endlessly. There must be a smallest piece, so tiny that it could no longer be split. He called this imagined particle atomos, meaning “uncuttable” or “indivisible.”
To Democritus and his mentor Leucippus, these atoms were eternal and in constant motion, invisible to the naked eye, combining in various ways to form all matter. Though he had no proof, his vision was astonishingly ahead of its time. In his mind’s eye, he had glimpsed the fabric of reality — not through observation, but through reason.
But his idea was not accepted. Aristotle, the revered philosopher of the time, believed that matter was continuous and made of four elements — earth, air, fire, and water — and his voice held sway for centuries. The atom was forgotten, dismissed as an abstract fancy.
And so, for nearly 2,000 years, the dream of Democritus slumbered.
It wasn’t until the 1800s, in a quiet laboratory in England, that the idea of the atom would awaken again — this time, with evidence.
Here lived a schoolteacher and chemist named John Dalton, a modest man with a deep curiosity for the natural world. He was fascinated by gases, weather, and the invisible forces that governed the behavior of matter. As he studied the properties of gases and chemical reactions, he began to notice a pattern: elements always combined in certain fixed proportions, never randomly.
For example, water was always two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Why? Dalton proposed that the only explanation was that matter was made of tiny particles — indivisible units that could combine in whole number ratios. He revived the word “atom,” and in 1803, he published his atomic theory.
Dalton’s atoms were not yet the swirling, dynamic particles we know today. They were solid spheres, each element made of its own unique type of atom. These atoms combined to form compounds, and in chemical reactions, atoms rearranged but were never destroyed.
His theory lit a spark across the scientific world. The atom, once only an idea, now had a place in the realm of real science.
But the journey was only beginning.
Over the next century, experiments revealed that atoms were not indivisible after all. In 1897, a physicist named J.J. Thomson discovered the electron — a tiny, negatively charged particle inside the atom. His work showed that atoms were not solid balls, but had internal structure. Thomson imagined the atom as a kind of “plum pudding,” with electrons scattered throughout a positively charged cloud.
Still, scientists wondered: if atoms had negative charges, where was the positive? What held everything together?
In 1909, another great experiment changed everything. Ernest Rutherford, working in a lab in Manchester, England, designed a daring test. He and his team shot tiny particles at a thin sheet of gold foil. According to Thomson’s model, the particles should have passed straight through. But some bounced back — as if they had struck something dense at the heart of the atom.
Rutherford concluded that atoms must have a small, heavy center — a nucleus. The atom, he said, was mostly empty space, with a dense, positively charged core and electrons orbiting around it, like planets around the sun.
The atom was no longer indivisible. It had parts — electrons, protons, and later, neutrons. It was not unbreakable, but intricate and full of mystery.
Still, the spirit of Democritus lived on. Though atoms were no longer the smallest particles, his dream had laid the foundation. And as science progressed, atoms were split in nuclear reactions, unlocking the energy of the stars. The un-splittable had been split, and a new age had begun.
In 1932, James Chadwick discovered the neutron, completing the trio of particles in the nucleus. Later still, physicists uncovered quarks, gluons, and a zoo of subatomic particles in their quest to understand the universe’s building blocks.
Yet through all this unraveling, the atom remained a symbol — of the power of curiosity, the beauty of patterns, and the courage to imagine the invisible.
Today, we teach children about atoms. We draw them with orbits and nuclei, knowing they are far more complex than any diagram. We use them to power cities, diagnose diseases, and explore the very origin of life.
But before there were labs and accelerators, there was a man who closed his eyes and saw the unseen.
In a world of temples and myths, Democritus dared to believe in something smaller than sight — and in doing so, he touched something greater than he could know.
The atom, once “indivisible,” became the key to unlocking the universe.
And so, the story of the atom is not just the story of matter — it is the story of human wonder, passed from one dreamer to the next, across millennia, seeking to understand what everything is made of — and finding, again and again, that the smallest things hold the greatest truths.