atom

前缀a-, 不，非。词根tom, 切，见anatomy. 因古代哲学观念认为原子是最小的不可切分单位而得名。

atom

atom: [16] Etymologically, atom means ‘not cut, indivisible’. Greek átomos ‘that which cannot be divided up any further’ was formed from the negative prefix a- ‘not’ and the base *tom- ‘cut’ (source also of English anatomy and tome), and was applied in the Middle Ages not just to the smallest imaginable particle of matter, but also to the smallest imaginable division of time; an hour contained 22,560 atoms.

Its use by classical writers on physics and philosophy, such as Democritus and Epicurus, was sustained by medieval philosophers, and the word was ready and waiting for 19th-century chemists when they came to describe and name the smallest unit of an element, composed of a nucleus surrounded by electrons.
=> anatomy, tome

atom (n.)

late 15c., as a hypothetical indivisible body, the building block of the universe, from Latin atomus (especially in Lucretius) "indivisible particle," from Greek atomos "uncut, unhewn; indivisible," from a- "not" + tomos "a cutting," from temnein "to cut" (see tome). An ancient term of philosophical speculation (in Leucippus, Democritus), revived 1805 by British chemist John Dalton. In late classical and medieval use also a unit of time, 22,560 to the hour. Atom bomb is from 1945 as both a noun and a verb; compare atomic.

1. He patented the idea that the atom could be split.

他获得了“原子可以再分”这一概念的专利权。

2. the splitting of the atom

原子的分裂

3. A molecule of water consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.

水分子由两个氢原子和一个氧原子构成。

4. The neutrons and protons form the core of the atom.

中子和质子构成了原子核.

5. For many years the atom was believed to be indivisible.

在过去有很多年原子一直被认为是不可分割的.