These two facts, the fact that atoms do not fuse and the fact that everything in the macroscopic world is made up of clusters of atoms, mean that everything in the macroscopic world is subject to change depending on the results of collisions between atoms within a macroscopic cluster. Democritus also stated that each individual atom will persist eternally and remain unchanged, but that its macroscopic form is subject to change at any time during that eternity. It is by using these ideas that atomism was able to question some theories of the time. The first theory challenged by atomism was a theory by the philosopher Parmenides who argued that for something to change, something must come out of nothing because the changed part wasn't there to begin with, so something must have been done to it. start from nothing. Atomism challenged this idea by asserting that atoms are always present, but depending on their interaction within the cluster, they can change their appearance and macroscopic properties. The idea contested by