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465 BCE
Democritus
Democritus hypothesized that atoms can't be destroyed, be differ in size, differ in shape, differ in temperature, and are always moving but aren't visible. -
John Dalton
Dalton's Law with gasses helped him realize that every form of matter (whether solid, liquid or gas) was also made up of small individual particles. He borrowed the term "atomos" or "atoms" to label the particles from Democratus. -
JJ Thomson
Thomson determined that all matter is made up of tiny particles that are much smaller than atoms. He originally called these particles 'corpuscles,' although they are now called electrons. -
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest determined the structure of the atom and he was the world's first successful alchemist. He was the first person to split the atom. -
Niels Bohr
He is responsible for the Bohr model of the atom which is commonly used today. Bohr proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level to another. -
Shroedinger,Heiserberg
Erwin Schrodinger formed a model of a complete atom as interacting waves. The particles became like vibrations on a violin string, only they were closed in circles.
Heiserberg helped understand how atoms were visualized as a nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons distributed according to a wave pattern by the Schrodinger equation.
