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Democritus
440 B. C. The theory of Democritus and Leucippus held that everything is composed of "atoms", which are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible; that between atoms lies empty space; that atoms are indestructible; have always been, and always will be, in motion; that there are an infinite number of atoms, and kinds of atoms, which differ in shape, and size. -
Law of Conservation of Mass
The principle of conservation of mass was first outlined clearly by Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794). Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) had expressed similar ideas in 1748—and proved them by experiments—though this is sometimes challenged.[6] Others who anticipated the work of Lavoisier include Joseph Black (1728–1799), Henry Cavendish (1731–1810), and Jean Rey (1583–1645). The law states that matter cannot be destroyed or created. -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lavoisier discovered that Henry Cavendish's "inflammable air," which Lavoisier had termed hydrogen (Greek for "water-former"), combined with oxygen to produce a dew which, as Joseph Priestley had reported, appeared to be water. In ("On Combustion in General," 1777) ("General Considerations on the Nature of Acids," 1778) he demonstrated that the "air" responsible for combustion was also the source of acidity. In 1779, he named this part of the air "oxygen. -
John Dalton
In 1803 he revealed the concept of Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures. While studying the nature and chemical makeup of air in the early 1800s, Dalton learned that it was not a chemical solvent, as other scientists had believed. Instead it was a mechanical system composed of small individual particles that used pressure applied by each gas independently. -
Dalton's Atomic Theory
John Dalton developed the first useful atomic theory of matter around 1803. In the course of his studies on meteorology, Dalton concluded that evaporated water exists in air as an independent gas. He wondered how water and air could occupy the same space at the same time, when obviously solid bodies can't. If the water and air were composed of discrete particles, Dalton reasoned, evaporation might be viewed as a mixing of water particles with air particles. -
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Mendeleev developed this early form of the periodic table in 1871. In 1863, there were only 56 elements known and were developing at a rate of roughly one per year. Mendeleev organized these elements which was the fore father of today's periodic table. -
J. J. Thomson
Thomson, in 1897, was the first to suggest that the fundamental unit was over 1000 times smaller than an atom, suggesting the subatomic particles now known as electrons. Thomson discovered this through his explorations on the properties of cathode rays. Thomson made his suggestion on 30 April 1897 following his discovery that Lenard rays could travel much further through air than expected for an atom-sized particle. -
Cathode Ray Tube
Electrons were first discovered as the constituents of cathode rays. In 1897 British physicist J. J. Thomson showed the rays were composed of a previously unknown negatively charged particle, which was later named the electron. Cathode ray tubes using a focused beam of electrons deflected by electric or magnetic fields, create the image in a classic television set. -
Gold Foil Experiment
In 1899 Ernest Rutherford studied the absorption of radioactivity by thin sheets of metal foil and found two components: alpha (a) radiation, which is absorbed by a few thousandths of a centimeter of metal foil, and beta (b) radiation, which can pass through 100 times as much foil before it was absorbed. Shortly thereafter, a third form of radiation, named gamma (g) rays, was discovered that can penetrate as much as several centimeters of lead. -
Plum Pudding Atomic Model
The plum pudding model of the atom by J. J. Thomson, who discovered the electron in 1897, was proposed in 1904 before the discovery of the atomic nucleus in order to add the electron to the atomic model. In this model, the atom is composed of electrons surrounded by a soup of positive charge to balance the electrons' negative charges, like negatively charged "plums" surrounded by positively charged "pudding". -
Robert Millikan
Starting in 1908, while a professor at the University of Chicago, Millikan worked on an oil-drop experiment in which he measured the charge on a single electron. J.J. Thomson had already discovered the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron. However, the actual charge and mass values were unknown. Therefore, if one of these two values were to be discovered, the other could easily be found. Millikan and his then graduate student Harvey Fletcher used the oil-drop experiment to measure the charge. -
Ernest Rutherford
Along with Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden in 1909, he carried out the Geiger–Marsden experiment, which demonstrated the nuclear nature of atoms. Rutherford was inspired to ask Geiger and Marsden in this experiment to look for alpha particles with very high deflection angles, of a type not expected from any theory of matter at that time. Such deflections, though rare, were found, and proved to be a smooth but high-order function of the deflection angle. -
Rutherford Model
Upon Rutherford's 1911 analysis, that the so-called "plum pudding model" of J. J. Thomson of the atom was incorrect. Rutherford's new model[1] for the atom, based on the experimental results, contained the new features of a relatively high central charge concentrated into a very small volume in comparison to the rest of the atom and with this central volume also containing the bulk of the atomic mass of the atom. This region would be named the "nucleus" of the atom in later years. -
Henry Moseley
Furthermore, as noted by Bohr, Moseley's law provided a reasonably complete experimental set of data that supported the (new from 1911) conception by Ernest Rutherford and Antonius Van den Broek of the atom, with a positively-charged nucleus surrounded by negatively-charged electrons in which the atomic number is understood to be the exact physical number of positive charges (later discovered and called protons) in the central atomic nuclei of the elements. -
Bohr Planetary Model
In 1913 Bohr, by accident, stumbled across Balmer's numerology for the hydrogen spectrum, and in a flash came up with a workable model of the atom. The model asserts that:
The planetary model is correct. When an electron is in an "allowed" orbit it does not radiate. Thus the model simply throws out classical electromagnetic theory. -
Neils Bohr
The Bohr model of the atom, the theory that electrons travel in discrete orbits around the atom's nucleus.
The shell model of the atom, where the chemical properties of an element are determined by the electrons in the outermost orbit. The correspondence principle, the basic tool of Old quantum theory.
The liquid drop model of the atomic nucleus. Identified the isotope of uranium that was responsible for slow-neutron fission – 235U.
Much work on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics -
Erwin Schrodinger
In autumn 1922 he analyzed the electron orbits in an atom from a geometric point of view, using methods developed by the mathematician Hermann Weyl. This work, in which it was shown that quantum orbits can be associated with certain geometric properties, was an important step in predicting some of the features of wave mechanics. -
Electron Cloud Model
In 1924, a French physicist named Louis de Broglie suggested that, like light, electrons could act as both particles and waves. De Broglie's hypothesis was soon confirmed in experiments that showed electron beams could be diffracted or bent as they passed through a slit much like light could. So, the waves produced by an electron confined in its orbit about the nucleus sets up a standing wave of specific wavelength. -
Quantum Mechanical Model
Fundamental equation developed in 1926 by Erwin Schrödinger that established the mathematics of quantum mechanics. The equation determines the behaviour of the wave function that describes the wavelike properties of a subatomic system. It relates kinetic energy and potential energy to the total energy, and it is solved to find the different energy levels of the system. Schrödinger applied the equation to the hydrogen atom and predicted many of its properties with remarkable accuracy. -
James Chadwick
In 1932, Chadwick made a fundamental discovery in the domain of nuclear science: he proved the existence of neutrons - elementary particles devoid of any electrical charge. In contrast with the helium nuclei, which are charged, and therefore repelled by the considerable electrical forces present in the nuclei of heavy atoms, this new tool in atomic disintegration need not overcome any electric barrier and is capable of penetrating and splitting the nuclei of even the heaviest elements.
