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             During this period the Greeks had laid the basic foundation for one of our main ideas about the universe. Leucippus and Democritus established the idea of the atom in an effort to figure out the ultimate composition of things. At that time there was no way to test whether atoms really existed, and more than 2000 years passed before scientists proved the theory.
             Meanwhile, the Egyptians were already practicing the art of chemistry. They were mining and purifying the metals gold, silver and copper. They were making "embalming" fluids and dyes. They called this art khemia, and it flourished until the seventh century A.D., when it was taken over by the Arabs. The Arabs changed the word khemia to alkhemia. Today our version of the word, alchemy is used to describe everything that happened in chemistry between A.D. 300 and A.D. 1600.
             The main goal of the alchemists was the conversion of base metals into gold. They wanted to turn one element into another. The ancient Arabic emperors employed many alchemists to try and change mercury, copper and other less worthy meta
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