Important Discoveries in Chemistry
Since the dawn of man, chemistry has been the tool used to fulfill our search for knowledge. A multitude of discoveries have changed the way use chemistry. These discoveries are being made every day and they change the way we see the universe. The following is a sample of important discoveries in chemistry.
1. Discovery of the Atom
The idea that atoms make up matter has been around for centuries. However, it has only played a role in chemistry for the past 200 years, and the idea hasn’t taken off until the last 100 years.
Ancient Greek philosopher, Demokritos, was one of the first to propose the idea that matter is made up of smaller units. He called these units, “atoms”. The word atom means unable to be divided. Demokritos also thought that the atoms moved through an infinite “empty”. Aristotle, however, believed the world contained continuous substances; his belief would be dominant for the time period.
The atom would not be scientifically theorized until 1808 by John Dalton. His atomic theory states:
All matter contains indivisible and indestructible particles called atoms.
The atoms of any one element have the same mass and properties.
Compounds are the result of the combination of different atoms.
The rearrangement of atoms results in a chemical reaction.
Today, nothing in chemistry would be the same without the idea of the atom. Not only is it the basic building block of all matter, but it is also the basic building block of almost all of our knowledge in chemistry.
2. Discovery of the Electron
The electron was discovered by J.J. Thompson, a physics professor at Cambridge University.
The discovery would be the result of Thompson’s experiments with cathode tubes used in electric and ...
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...ial agent was at its greatest. The U.S. pushed industry to produce the penicillin mold. Towards the end of World War II, 650 billion units of penicillin were produced every month.
7. Discovery of Water in Martian Soil
A more recent discovery might set the path to discovering life on another planet. Data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover shows that Martian soil holds about 2% water.
The rover’s “Sample Analysis at Mars” instrument heated a soil sample to 835 degrees Celsius. The resulting gases were oxygen, chlorine, and surprisingly, water vapor.
Laurie Leshin of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute says that a cubic foot of the soil would yield a couple pints of water. From what we know so far, this water is drinkable. However, no one has worked out how to use the soil as a resource for water. One idea is to use a condenser to cool the water vapor into a liquid.
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Show Morephysics. The work of Ernest Rutherford, H. G. J. Moseley, and Niels Bohr on atomic
Discovered that certain chemicals glowed when exposed to cathode rays. These chemicals were special because they weren’t deflected by the magnetic field produced in the cathode ray tube (which was built by Sir William Crookes in 1870).
When people think of comparison and likeness, they rapidly jump to immediate observations and obvious detections. They fail to perceive the more imperative and subtle attributes. Whether anybody knows it or not, everything that inhabits the world and even the universe is alike in at least one way. All of these substances contain matter. Matter is the physical substance which encompasses everything, from dusty nebulas to the food on one’s dinner plate. It can be described as anything that has mass and takes up space. Within this matter are infinitesimal particles called atoms. So far, they are what scientists believe to be the smallest part of anything and can even be synthesized in labs (Oxlade 7.) The knowledge scientists possess of atoms is huge, in contrast to their microscopic size. In fact, modern day scientists would not have even obtained this knowledge if preceding chemists and physicists did not unveil what was covered. They paved the way to the vast expansion of awareness and allowed the atom to be seen in its true form. However, these impeccable discoveries did not spawn from a single human being, but rather from a chronological timeline of coincidental events.
In 1803 this theory was finalised and stated that (1) all matter is made up of the smallest possible particles termed atoms, (2) atoms of a given element have unique characteristics and weight, and (3) three types of atoms exist: simple (elements), compound (simple molecules), and complex (complex molecules).
I feel personally that the discovery of the atom was an important discovery for the world. With the discovery we are now able to answer questions we never even thought to ask. We are also answering questions some people asked long ago. We can now use our vast knowledge of the atom to measure the stars and be able to tell you what the stars are made of. The atomic discovery also helped us find our periodic table of elements. The periodic table of elements is a huge scientific chart that shows important facts with the help of its formation. There was a lot of constant scientific research that went into making the periodic table of elements and what it is today.
The Atomic Theory began in roughly 400BC with Democritus in Ancient Greece and is universally believed to be correct today. Democritus who was born in 460 BC and died 370 BC and is known as the father of modern science. Democritus proclaimed that everything is made up of atoms. He continued his theory to say that atoms will always be in motion, between atoms there is empty space, atoms are unbreakable, there are an infinite number of atoms all different sizes and shapes. He also said that iron atoms are solid and strong and have hooks to lock them together, water atoms are smooth and slippery, salt atoms have sharp jagged edges because of its taste and air atoms are light and spiralling.
The water contained under the soil has had some various effects on the Mars terrain. When the robots were on mars collecting samples, they found some rocks that looked like rocks from prehistoric life here on earth. When analyzing these samples, the scientists deemed that the water was very acidic and salty. This is similar to some of the earlier times in the Australian area.
The study of atoms, electrons, neutrons, and protons is so complex that throughout history scientists have developed several models of the atom. From the early Greek concept of the atom, about 2400 years ago, to today's modern atomic model, scientists have built on and modified existing models, as new information was discovered. There are still concepts on which...
Things are very different from each other, and can be broken down into small groups inside itself, which was then noticed early by people, and Greek thinkers, about 400BC. Which just happened to use words like "element', and `atom' to describe the many different parts and even the smallest parts of matter. These ideas were around for over 2000 years while ideas such as `Elements' of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water to explain `world stuff' came and went. Much later, Boyle, an experimenter like Galileo and Bacon, was influenced much by Democritus, Gassendi, and Descartes, which lent much important weight to the atomic theory of matter in the 1600s. Although it was Lavoisier who had divided the very few elements known in the 1700's into four different classes, and then John Dalton made atoms even more believable, telling everyone that the mass of an atom was it's most important property. Then in the early 1800's Dobereiner noted that the similar elements often had relative atomic masses, and DeChancourtois made a cylindrical table of elements to display the periodic reoccurrence of properties. Cannizaro then determined atomic weights for the 60 or so elements known in the 1860s, and then a table was arranged by Newlands, with the many elements given a serial number in order of their atomic weights, of course beginning with Hydrogen. That made it clear that "the eighth element, starting from a given one, is a kind of a repeat of the first", which Newlands called the Law of Octaves.
Physicist today have been experimenting with atoms to find out more about what they do. One atom they have been experimenting with is the Higgs Boson that can be found in the Large Hadron Collider. As Abigail Beal wrote, “By smashing particles together at high speeds, to create high-energy collisions, particle accelerators were first used to look into the structure of an atom’s nucleus” (Wired UK). Physicist are experimenting with atoms to find out all they are capable of. When they are able to find out what all they are capable of, it will unlock great things in science. When Democritus came up with the theory of atoms being the basic building block of nature, he most likely didn’t think by this point in time one of his greatest ideas would be an instrumental part of
Dalton was the first person to develop a scientific atom theory, the ancient Greeks had ideas about the atom but could not prove it scientifically.
We see our modern world filled with so many advances with technology and science. We usually do not think about science when using a smart phone or google to find information with one click of a button. Do we think about Chemistry when taking an antibiotic medication for an infection? Just about everything involves science and technology, but what would happen if one scientist didn’t discover one theory, a theory that can alter our advance society as we know today. This one man was credited as the founder of chemistry. “Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and change of matter” (Wikipedia, 2014). “Chemistry is chiefly concerned with atoms and molecules and their interactions and transformation”
...ituation. We would lack an understanding of the anatomy of atoms, and how they are made up of a nucleus with surrounding electrons, and the influence they have on the world around us, and how it works. The importance of electrons would not be appreciated, nor their relevance to experiments on the theory of matter.
Eugene Goldstein was a German physicist, who was an early investigator of discharge tubes. Furthermore, he discovered the anode rays and is credited for the discovery of the proton. This investigation led to J.J Thomson’s famous experiment that resulted in the discovery of the Electron.
Scientists from earlier times helped influence the discoveries that lead to the development of atomic energy. In the late 1800’s, Dalton created the Atomic Theory which explains atoms, elements and compounds (Henderson 1). This was important to the study of and understanding of atoms to future scientists. The Atomic Theory was a list of scientific laws regarding atoms and their potential abilities. Roentagen, used Dalton’s findings and discovered x-rays which could pass through solid objects (Henderson 1). Although he did not discover radiation from the x-rays, he did help lay the foundations for electromagnetic waves. Shortly after Roentagen’s findings, J.J. Thompson discovered the electron which was responsible for defining the atom’s characteristics (Henderson 2). The electron helped scientists uncover why an atom responds to reactions the way it does and how it received its “personality”. Dalton’s, Roentagen’s and Thompson’s findings helped guide other scientists to discovering the uses of atomic energy and reactions. Such applications were discovered in the early 1900’s by using Einstein’s equation, which stated that if a chain reaction occurred, cheap, reliable energy could b...