Many different scientists contributed to the atomic theory. Every single one of them played an important role in creating the atomic theory known today. Around 400 BCE Leucippus was the scientist who originally thought of the atomic theory. Democritus adopted the ideas of Leucippus, his mentor. Democritus soon developed the idea of an atom. Democritus believed everything was made up tiny particles of matter called atoms. He chose this name because in Greek atom means indivisible. After Democritus Isaac Newton was the next scientist to contribute to the atomic theory. Isaac Newton began to realize that atoms were constantly moving and not stationary. In 1803 John Dalton added to the atomic theory. Dalton’s atomic theory was composed of five …show more content…
For example, Atoman is a popular character that can be found in many different popular comics. The invention of the femtometer made it possible and more realistic to measure an atomic nucleus. Without technology, there would not be many scientific discoveries. It is important to know and understand the atomic theory. Without an understanding of the atomic theory many aspects of science would be lost. It would be hard to understand why some things were happening the way they were or how it was possible. By understanding the atomic theory, we can eliminate some of the confusion and know what is going on. By understanding how the atomic theory works, it will be easier to grasp other, more complicated, scientific principles and theories. There are many different things factored into the atomic theory of today. Past scientists have added new principles and theories. Scientists are still making new discoveries today, and will continue to add to the atomic theory. There will probably never be an all inclusive theory that cannot be made any better. Technology has played an important role in the development of the atomic theory. It is very important to be able to understand the atomic
Attempts to organize the elements began in the late 1800’s. At this time, about sixty elements were known. Much advancement would have been impossible if the basic model of the atom was discovered. Great progress came from Dmitri Medeleev – a Russian chemist. His first draft of a periodic table was only the product of him attempting to summarize his knowledge of the elements. Although not all of Medeleev’s ideas were one-hundred percent accurate, they created a solid base to build upon. Marie and Pierre Curie; a married couple from Paris were successors of Medeleev. Their interests were radioactivity and discovered radium. The true pioneers of the periodic table were Ernest Rutherford and James Chadwick. Rutherford formed the hypothesis that, “An atom must have a concentrated positive center charge that contains most of the atom’s mass.” Following Rutherford, Chadwick exposed a segment of the nucleus that was had no charge: the neutron. With the basic knowledge of the structure of an atom, the tedious work of putting the rest of the puzzle together continued.
...the first version of the atomic theory, which then later allowed John Dalton to expand on the atomic theory to create a method of discerning atomic weight, was crucial in the development in the table. It was through finding the atomic weight of elements as well as classifying their properties that allowed Mendeleev to create his periodic table and discern possible new elements.
Although the atomic theory was developed in increments, George Johnston Stoney is most famous for contributing the term electron: fundamental unit quantity of electricity. Stoney would develop the concept fourteen years before he coined the term electron. He also made contributions to the theory of gasses, cosmic physics, and estimated the number of molecules in a cubic millimeter of gas.
Dalton’s atomic theory, which stated “the atoms were tiny, indivisible, indestructible particles” (Bender), differed drastically from that of the Greeks’ in that it “wasn’t just a philosophical statement that there are atoms because there must be atoms” (Bender). Although Aristotle believed that there are four terrestrial elements, earth, water, air, and fire, Democratus believed that “a piece of a substance can be divided into smaller pieces of that substance until we get down to a fundamental level at which you can’t divide the substance up and still have pieces of that substance” (“Atoms”). Aristotle’s theory was popular, but incorrect; Democratus’s was closer to our current theory, yet he remained relatively unpopular and obscure. This demonstrates of the key way in which a personal point of view can, in fact, retard the pursuit of knowledge. The scientist with the better oratory abilities has his theories more widely accepted. Dalton’s own theory, which extrapolated upon four basic
physics. The work of Ernest Rutherford, H. G. J. Moseley, and Niels Bohr on atomic
Created special and general theories of relativity and speculated upon the particle nature of light. This was the basis of understanding nuclear energy.
In the beginning, Democritus discovered that matter is made of atoms in 380 B.C. (Doc. 1). He said that each substance is composed of one type of atomos (OI). The next person to expand on this topic was Aristotle. In his experiment, he found that there was no empty space in the atom. He said that there is only Earth, Water, Air, and Fire (OI). More people included and constructed what the atom is made up of. The last person to discover something new with the atom was Rutherford. He made an experiment that would test
In 1911, Ernest Rutherford found a very spectacular in such a small thing. Rutherford found that an atom has a microscopic charged nucleus. Empty space surrounds the nucleus. The nucleus is also surrounded by electrons. By this discovery Rutherford made the model of the atom.
Many scientists helped with this. In 465 B.C. Democritus named the atom “can’t be divided” (OI). He proposed that matter was made of atoms (Doc. 1). Later, Lavoisier introduced the Law of Conservation of Matter. It stated that matter couldn’t be created or destroyed. After that, John Dalton published the Atomic Theory of Matter in 1803 (Doc. 2). It said that matter is made of atoms that are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and that each type of matter is made of only one kind of atom (OI). J. J. Thomson observed electrons using cathode rays. A few years later, Ernest Rutherford bombarded an extremely thin piece of gold foil with positively charged alpha particles. Most of the protons passed through the foil, but some bounced off. Rutherford concluded that the atom must be composed of mostly empty space. He also realized that the alpha particles must have bounced off something else that had positive charge. The positively charged objects were protons. Neutrons were discovered by James Chadwick. To conclude, the theories of the atom have been modified a lot since the
In the 1800s, he proposed a modern atomic model. These lead too many theories which we believe to find true today. Some of his propositions are basic. All matter is made of atoms. Atoms of the same elements are identical. Each element has different atoms. The ideas he created are used for the law of conservation and the law of constant composition. In 1801, he gave a series of lectures that show research about gas and liquids, which was published the next year. His ideas were good enough and accepted during that time, which deserves some gratitude. In 1803, he theorized what is now known as Dalton's Law. It states, “the total pressure of combined gases is equal to the partial pressures of each of those gases separately.” He was able to configure atomic weights from six elements which are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus—which are commonly known elements. In 1837 he had a stroke which affected his speech for over a year.
In 1801 he argued that the atmosphere was filled with mechanical gases and that the chemical reactions between the nitrogen and oxygen played no part in the atmosphere?s construction. To prove this he conducted a lot of experiments on the solubility of gases in water. This showed that dissolved gases were mechanically mixed with the water and weren?t mixed naturally. But in 1803 it was found that this depended on the weight of the individual particles of the gas or atoms. By assuming the particles were the same size Dalton was able to develop the idea of atomic weights.
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.
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.
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...