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Antoine Lavoisier
found that during a chemical reaction, mass is conserved. The total mass of the result of the reaction, is always the same as the mass of the starting material. This is because atoms are neither created or destroyed in a chemical reaction. -
Joseph Louis Proust
studied chemical compounds and their mass. He found that compounds contain the same proportions of elements using mass. Proust used this to write the law of definite proportions. -
John Dalton
theorized about atoms. Things like atoms being invisible, similar materials having the same atoms, and how compounds are just different compounds of atoms. He made a model known as the "Solid Sphere" or the "Billiard Ball." -
Michael Faraday
discovered that atoms had an electrical component. -
Henri Becquerel
discovered radioactivity in Uranium, making people re-evaluate the structures of atoms. This showed that atoms were neither indivisible nor immutable, and could emit large amounts of energy. -
Marie Curie
conducted experiments on radiation. Her findings lead to that radioactivity doesn't depend on the arrangement of atoms, but rather that it comes from the atoms themselves. -
Max Planck
studied thermodynamics. He theorized that the hot glow of matter is from "packets" of energy being released every minute. -
J.J. Thomson
produced the "Plum Pudding" model, composed of electrons scattered around a positive charge. -
Albert Einstien
explained the equivalency of mass and energy, producing the famous equation e=mc2. He also proved the existence of atoms using math. -
Ernest Rutherford
experimented by shooting positively charged particles at a piece of gold foil. His findings produced the idea of a Nucleus. His model is named the "Nuclear Model." -
Neils Bohr
used Rutherford's model, developing the "Planetary Model," by theorizing that electrons move around the nucleus in orbits of set sizes and energies. -
Erwin Schrodinger
stated that electron's don't move in set paths, they move in waves or "clouds of probability," called orbitals. He produced the "Quantum Model" -
James Chadwick
used alpha particles on beryllium atoms, resulting in radiation. Using that data, he applied it to discovering the Neutron, a neutrally charged version of the Proton. -
Lise Meitner
discovered that nuclear fission can produce enormous amounts of energy. -
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
used mathematics to develop a model of nuclear shells.
