Choose Your Own Chemical Adventure

Accompanying Dalton to the Dog and Partridge, you soon find yourself seated at the bar. In your hand is a pint of Joule's Stone Ale. You talk for a while about the weather and about your family. Dalton seems to be very interested. The topic of conversation gradually moves from the mundane to the philosophical.

Peering deeply into his now almost-empty beer glass, Dalton inquires "What do you think, James? Is matter made up of discrete particles or is it a continuum? You know. Some Greek and Indian philosophers believed that matter cannot be divided indefinitely."

"You mean to say that matter is made up of some kind of smallest particle?", you reply.