Atomic Theory

  • Antoine Lavoisier

    He named the elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; discovered oxygen’s role in combustion and respiration; established that water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen; discovered that sulfur is an element, and helped continue the transformation of chemistry from a qualitative science into a quantitative one.
  • John Dalton

    Dalton arrived at his view of atomism by way of meteorology, in which he was seriously interested for a long period. John Dalton's book on meteorology led to the discovery of the nature of atoms.
  • Joseph Louis Proust

    He was best known for his discovery of the law of constant composition in 1799, stating that chemical compounds always combine in constant proportions.
  • Michael Faraday

    English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.
  • Henri Becquerel

    While studying the effect of x-rays on photographic film, he discovered some chemicals spontaneously decompose and give off very pentrating rays.
  • J.J. Tomson

    In a series of experiments desighned to study the nature of electric discharge in a high vacuum cathode ray tube. This is an area being investigated by numerous scientist at the time.
  • Albert Einstein

    Discovered the famous E=mc(squared)
  • Robert Milikan

    Robert Milikan measured the charge of the electron.In these experiments, the atomizer from a perfume bottle was used to spray water or oil droplets into a sample chamber. Some of these droplets fell through a pinhole between two plates of an electric field, where they could be observed through a microscope.
  • Ernest Rutherford

    He discovered alpha and beta rays, set forth the laws of radioactive decay, and identified alpha particles as helium nuclei. Most important, he postulated the nuclear structure of the atom
  • Marie Curie

    he discovered that the rays remained constant, no matter the condition or form of the uranium. The rays, she theorized, came from the element's atomic structure.
  • Niels Bohr

    best known for his substantial contributions to quantum theory and his Nobel Prize-winning research on the structure of atoms.
  • Max Planck

    German theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
  • Ernest Schrodinger

    Erwin Schrödinger formulated in 1926 a wave-equation that accurately gave the energy levels of atoms.
  • Louis DeBroglie

    His ideas were a basis for developing the wave mechanics theory. This theory has greatly improved our knowledge of the physical nature on the atomic scale. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics on his wave nature of electrons discovery in 1929.
  • James Chadwick

    James Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935.Rutherford, Chadwick, and some others believed in the possibility that particles with no charge could be in the nucleus.
  • Lisa Meitner

    Conducted experiments verifying that heavy elements capture neutrons and form unstable products which undergo fission. This process ejects more neutrons continuing the fission chain reaction.
  • Glen T. Seaborg

    Synthesized 6 transuranium elements and suggested a change in the layout of the periodic table.
  • Otto Hahn

    a German chemist and pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 for the discovery and the radiochemical proof of nuclear fission.