History of the Atom

By kehage

  • John Daltion

    • Found that there is a point where matter could not be broken down into anything smaller.
    • From John’s findings they discovered more than one element always had the same relative amounts of each element.

  • J. Plucker

    -Built one of the first gas discharge tubes (cathode ray tube).

  • Dmitri Mendeleev

    -Arranged elements into 7 groups with similar properties.
    -He discovered that the properties of elements were periodic functions of the their atomic weights. This became known as the Periodic Law.

  • James Clerk Maxwell

    -Proposed electric and magnetic fields filled the void.

  • J.J Thomson

    -Founded the first model of the atom 'The Plum Pudding.'
    -Found positive charges mixed together with electrons.

  • Marie Sklodowska Curie

    -Studied uranium and thorium and called their spontaneous decay process radioactivity.
    -She and her husband Pierre also discovered the radioactive elements polonium and radium.

  • Albert Einstein

    -Published the famous equation E=mc 2

  • R.A. Millikan

    -Oil drop experiment determined the charge and the mass of an electron.

  • Ernest Rutherford

    -Found alpha rays through matter.

  • James Chadwick

    -Student of Ernest Rutherford.
    -Discovered neutron.
    -Found that you could calculate mass of neutron.

  • Enrico Fermi

    -Conducted the first controlled chain reaction releasing energy from the atoms nucleus.