atomic shape diversity
“finite kinds, infinite tokens”
idea · 1 work · 1 mention · 9 anchored passages
finite tale of shapes · variety of shapes
in the texts
De Rerum Natura
The doctrine that atomic shapes, while extremely various, are finite in number of distinct kinds, whereas the count of atoms sharing any one shape is infinite — argued via a combinatorial proof and several poetic reductios.
For were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds
Vary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.
That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes