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Leucippus was a Greek philosopher of the 5th century BCE. He is credited with founding atomism, with his student Democritus. Leucippus divided the world into two entities: atoms, indivisible particles that make up all things, and the void, the nothingness between the atoms. Leucippus's ideas were influential in ancient and Renaissance philosophy. They were a precursor to modern atomic theory, but the two are only superficially similar. Leucippus's atoms come in infinitely many forms, all in constant motion, creating a deterministic world created by the collisions of atoms. The soul is viewed as an arrangement of spherical atoms, cycled through the body by respiration and creating thought and sensory input. Little is known of his life, with a few scholars doubting that he existed, attributing his ideas purely to Democritus. Two works are attributed to Leucippus, The Great World System and On Mind, but all of his writing has been lost except for one sentence. (Full article...)

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Selected anniversaries[edit]

May 11

Frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra

868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra was printed in Tang-dynasty China, making it the world's oldest dated printed book (frontispiece pictured).
1889 – Bandits attacked a U.S. Army paymaster's escort in the Arizona Territory, stealing more than $28,000.
1970 – Lubbock, Texas, was struck by a tornado that left 26 people dead.
2010 – Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party after failing to strike a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.
2022 – Myanmar civil war: Government troops killed 37 unarmed civilians in Mondaingbin.

Richard Feynman (b. 1918)
Judy Ann Santos (b. 1978)
Zenna Henderson (d. 1983)

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Did you know...[edit]

Forever Young

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... that Addie Viola Smith was the first female Foreign Service officer to serve under the United States Department of Commerce?
... that in 88 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla carried out the first coup d'état in Roman history?
... that during a soccer game, Mike Watts and his co-commentator wove more than 200 Taylor Swift song titles into the broadcast?
... that Bedok Reservoir MRT station features a public artwork including a message that "dribbles down" the lift shaft in motifs of droplets?
... that Cinda Firestone, the heiress to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, directed a documentary about the 1971 Attica Prison riot?
... that in 1850s New Orleans, the French revolutionary Joseph Déjacque called for black slaves and the white working class to overthrow the United States in a social revolution?
... that The Ugly Black Bird, a Polish book that discredited the autobiographical value of Kosiński's The Painted Bird, initially received reviews that were "more negative than favourable"?
... that Cam Booser retired from baseball to work as a carpenter in 2017 and made it to Major League Baseball in 2024?

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