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430 BCE
Democritus
He was a Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Greece in 460 BCE. He was the first to propose that there is an Atomic Universe. He claimed that everything is build by uncuttable building blocks. Democritus believed that atoms were indestructible, solid objects that make up everything. He was also the same philosopher to claim that cluster of stars in the sky was not a god, but instead what is known today as the Milky Way. -
John Dalton
He was a English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist born in Eagles-field, Cumberland. Dalton was the pioneer of the modern Atomic Theory. He stated that only similar atoms in mixtures of gases repel off one another. He also believed that each element had its own kind of atom of different sizes. Another one of his many accomplishments include having color blindness referee to as Daltonism because of the research he put into the disability. -
J.J. Thomson
He was an English physicist who was born in Cheetham Hill, England in 1856. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 and was knighted in 1907. His main accomplishment was discovering the electron corpuscles in 1897 which are now renamed to electrons. His discovery came from trying to prove the nature of Cathode Rays. -
Marie Curie
She was born on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire. She was a Polish-born French Physicists. She is known for helping study radioactivity. She won Nobel Peace prize twice (first woman to win). She began working in Lippmann’s research laboratory in 1893 and discovered polonium in summer of 1898 and radium. She also helped find treatments for cancer. -
Albert Einstein
He was a German American Physicist who was born March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. His contribution to the atom was explaining the photoelectric effect. His experiment was showing how when light hits a metal protons can knock off electrons (photoelectric effect). He won Noble Peace Prize in 1921 for this discovery. -
Niels Bohr
He was born October 7, 1885 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
He was the first to apply the quantum concept. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in physics in 1922.
He played a major role in development of quantum physics.
He experimented with nuclear fission (Splitting an atom's nucleus in two). His father was a professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen and was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. -
James Chadwick
He was a British Physicist, born Oct. 20, 1891 in Bollington, United Kingdom. Chadwick’s research led him to the discovery of the neutron. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935 and knighted in 1945 for his research. His experiment was the beryllium bombardment, which showed particles of mass equal to the neutrons. -
Erwin Schrödinger
He was born on August 12, 1887 in Vienna, Austria.
He was an Austrian theoretical physicist. He contributed to the wave theory of matter and the quantum theory.
He shared the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize. He entered college at the University of Vienna in 1906 and obtained his doctorate in 1910. He did an experiment named “Schrödinger's cat” (Places cat and vial of poison in box).