"If, in some cataclysm, all of
scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed
on to the next generation of creatures, what statement woul contain
the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic
hypothesis that all things are made of atoms - little particles that
move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are
a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one
another."
Richard Feynman [The
Feynman lectures on Physics, Addison-Wesley publishing Company,1970].