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Democritus
Around 440 B.C.E Democritus who was a greek philospher defined an atom and hypothesized the idea of breaking a substance down into smaller and smaller pieces would soon end you up with the smallest particles possible. -
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Aristotle
Aristotle opposed all ideas that were part of the atomic theory; He developed a theory that consisted of the four elements and potentially a fifth, as well as four qualities within these elements. This theory was used for about 2000 years until other theories disproved this claim. -
Robert Boyle
In the 1600s Robert Boyle defined the modern idea of an “element” and introduced tests to differentiate acids. His law states that if the volume of a gas is decreased, the pressure increases proportionally, as well as Boyle tried to construct a “corpuscular theory” of chemistry. -
Isaac Newton
Around the 1660s, Newton established the modern study of optics, and in 1687, with his friend the astronomer Edmond Halley, they published the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy which showed how a universal force, and gravity applied to all objects in all parts of the world. -
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley was a chemist who discovered oxygen, although he called is “dephlogisticated air” as well as also discovering carbon dioxide. He also invented soda pop by dissolving carbon dioxide into water to make carbonated water. -
Joseph Louis Proust
Joseph Louis Proust is a french chemist who discovered the law of constant proportions, or Proust’s law. Which states that pure samples of a compound always contain the same elements in exact proportions. -
Jöns Berzelius
Berzelius was a Swedish chemist who was the first to use notations for the chemical names, using symbols for the elements and numbers to indicate the size. -
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Mendeleev formulated a periodic table of elements similar to the one we have today, he also left gaps in the periodic table where he predicted 3 unknown spaces that turned out to be germanium, gallium and scandium. -
James Chadwick
In 1932, James Chadwick proved that neutrons did exist and was preparing the split of Uranium 235 and the creation of the atomic bomb. As well as winning the Nobel Prize for physics in 1935. -
Gerd Binnig
Gerd Binnig, a German physicist, with his colleague Heinrich Rohrer, he designed the first scanning tunneling microscope which magnifies images to the extent that individual atoms are clearly seen. They invented the atomic force microscope in 1986 which gives a finer image and received a Nobel Prize.
