Atomic Model Timeline

  • 400 BCE

    Atoms Identified as Building Blocks of Matter

  • 400 BCE

    Beginning of War on the Persians in Asia Minor

    Xenophon's march through the Persian Empire encouraged Sparta to begin war on the Persians
  • John Dalton's "Marble Model"

    John Dalton's "Marble Model"
    Through his research, Dalton concluded that atoms were hard spheres
  • The Battle of Trafalgar

    The Battle of Trafalgar was one of the most important engagements for Britain in the Napoleonic wars because the victory saved them from French invasion.
  • Micheal Faraday Discovers Electrical Component

    When studying electrolysis, Faraday discovered that atoms have some electrical component.
  • Oregon Fever

    Oregon Fever hit America beginning mass migration on the Oregon Trail
  • Eugene Goldstein Discovers Electron Charge

    Goldstein found canal rays that have the same charge as an electron.
  • Plum Pudding Model

    Plum Pudding Model
    JJ Thompson discovered the charge-to-mass ratio of electrons through what he called the "Plum Pudding" model.
  • Hawaii Becomes a U.S. Territory

  • Ernest Rutherford "Jimmy Neutron" Model

    Ernest Rutherford "Jimmy Neutron" Model
    Rutherford discovered that the atom is mostly empty space and he discovered the nuclear structure of the atom
  • Robert Millikan Discovers Electron Charge

    Millikan discovered the magnitude of an electron's charge.
  • Niels Bohr "Solar System" Model

    Niels Bohr "Solar System" Model
    Bohr developed an atomic model showing that protons electrons revolve around a nucleus
  • Edwin Schroedinger "Electron Cloud" Model

    Edwin Schroedinger "Electron Cloud" Model
    Schroedinger's model a dense nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons at various levels in orbitals. Schrödinger mathematically determined regions in which electrons would be most likely found.
  • Werner Heisenberg Quantum Mechanics

    Werner Heisenberg contributed to atomic theory through formulating quantum mechanics in terms of matrices and in discovering the uncertainty principle, which states that a particle's position and momentum cannot both be known exactly
  • Stock Market Crash

  • James Chadwick Changes the Atomic Models

    James Chadwick Changes the Atomic Models
    Chadwick is best known for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. A neutron is a particle with no electric charge that, along with positively charged protons, makes up an atom's nucleus.
  • World War II Begins