The Atomic Model Timeline

  • Democritus
    460 BCE

    Democritus

    Brought uptime idea of an atom
  • Plato
    428 BCE

    Plato

    Plato theorized that these solid forms of matter are composed of indivisible elements shaped like triangles (contrary to the conception of atoms as spheres in Ancient Greece)
  • Period: to

    The Alchemists

    The alchemists believed that all metals could turn into another by putting it at different pressures. Even gold!
  • Robert Boyle

    Robert Boyle

    Demonstrated that matter is made of tiny particles that he called corpuscles (aka atoms)
  • Antone Lavoisier

    Antone Lavoisier

    Defined the law of conservation of mass
  • Billiard Ball Model

    Billiard Ball Model

    Proposed there model of an atom
  • John Dalton

    John Dalton

    Best known for proposing the atomic theory
    -Elements are made of extremely small particles called atoms.
    -Atoms of a given element are identical in size, mass, and other properties; atoms of different elements differ in size, mass, and other properties.
    -Atoms cannot be subdivided, created, or destroyed.
    -Atoms of different elements combine in simple whole-number ratios to form chemical compounds.
    In chemical reactions, atoms are combined, separated, or rearranged.
  • Amedeo Avogadro

    Amedeo Avogadro

    Advanced two hypotheses: (1) that equal volumes of gas contain equal numbers of molecules and (2) that elementary gases such as hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen were composed of two atoms.
  • Dimitri Mendeleev

    Dimitri Mendeleev

    Mendeleev created the periodic table of elements and predicted other elements
  • JJ Tompson

    JJ Tompson

    Discovered the electron
  • Perrie and Marie Curie

    Perrie and Marie Curie

    Discovered strong radioactive elements in polonium
  • Solar System Model

    Solar System Model

    It speculated that atoms could look like the solar system
  • Plum Pudding Model

    Plum Pudding Model

    Showed that there was a source of positive charge within the atom
  • Albert Einstein

    Albert Einstein

    Einstein mathematically proved the existence of atoms
  • Robert Millikan

    Robert Millikan

    An early accurate demonstration of the charge carried by an electron
  • Ernest Rutherford

    Ernest Rutherford

    Demonstrated the nuclear nature of an atom
  • Neils Bohr

    Neils Bohr

    Atomic physicist that introduced the Bohr model of an atom.
    The model depicted the atom as a small, positively charged nucleus surrounded by electrons that travel in circular orbits around the nucleus
  • Henry G. J. Moseley

    Henry G. J. Moseley

    Concluded that the atomic number is the number of positive charges in the atomic nucleus
  • Wener Heisenberg

    Wener Heisenberg

    Heisenberg formulated a type of quantum mechanics based on matrices
  • Electron Cloud Model

    Electron Cloud Model

    Helped physicists build a model on an atom
  • Erwin Schrödinger

    Erwin Schrödinger

    He combined the equations for the behavior of waves with the de Broglie equation to generate a mathematical model for the distribution of electrons in an atom.
  • James Chadwick

    James Chadwick

    Discovered the neutron