Introduction

An Indian Philosopher, in the 6th century B.C., believed and propounded the theory that everything is made of ’paramanu’ (atom). The old Hindu religious scriptures have at many places mentioned the terms ‘Anu – Renu’, probably meaning atom and sub-parts. its Researching on ’structure of matter’ Kanad wrote a volume on ’Vaisheshik Sutra’. It is one of the six ’sutras’ of Indian philosophy. In this volume, Kanad, writes about ’basic structure of matter and the properties of matter’. Kanad postulated that matter cannot be divided beyond certain limit. He called the smallest indivisible part of the matter as ’paramanu’

According to Kanad, paramanu of an element was indivisible, it did not exist in isolation (free-state) and different substances possessed different paramanus.

Around 100 to 150 years later, in 5th century B.C., a Greek philosopher, Democritus, made a similar hypothesis. He postulated that matter is made up of very small particles which cannot be cut into smaller particles. He named them as the atoms.

It was during Kanad or Democritus times that the methods to split an atom had not been found. Today, man has made tremendous progress in this field and has invented methods to split atoms and has experienced that such a split or even fusion of atoms releases immense amount of energy.