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500 BCE
The Alchemists
The Alchemists was a group of people who created the first four elements; earth, fire, water, and wind. The Alchemists created common science tools like funnels and flasks. -
440 BCE
Plato
Plato proposed that matter was continuous, infinite, and present in every form. Plato tutored people in the royal family. -
400 BCE
Democritus
Democritus believed that atoms were uniform, hard, solid, indestructible and incompressible. Atoms moved in infinite numbers through empty space until stopped. He set the basic of atoms for the world. He considered himself the father of modern science. -
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle made the law that states; If the volume of a gas decreases, the pressure increases proportionally. He also came up with the idea that elements are made up of corpuscles or atoms which come in various shapes and sizes. His father has been described as the "First colonial millionaire". -
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier found out that the total mass of products of a chemical reaction is the same as the total mass of the starting materials consumed in the reaction. He put this to the test and discovered one of the most basic principles of chemistry: the law of conservation of matter, which states that matter is preserved in chemical reactions. His father was apart of Paris parliament. -
John Dalton
John Dalton created the theory which states; All matter is composed of tiny, definite particles called atoms. Atoms are indivisible and indestructible. All atoms of a particular element share identical properties (weight included). Atoms of different elements contain different masses. John Dalton was a quaker. -
Billiard Ball Model of an Atom
Dalton's Billiard Ball Model Dalton believed that atoms were the tiniest units of matter, and he saw them as solid, hard spheres, similar to billiard (pool) balls, therefore he modeled them with wooden balls. -
Amedeo Avogadro
Amedeo Avogadro stated that the volume of gases at room temperature contain the same number of molecules. This helped organize the Periodic Table. Amedeo Avogadro had six children and retired at age of 74. -
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Mendeleev developed the periodic classification of the elements. When all know elements were ordered by increasing atomic weight, the table displayed an occurring pattern of groups groups within the elements. He graduated with a gold medal from the Main Pedagogical Institute in Saint Petersburg. -
JJ Thompson
JJ Thompson made the discovery that atoms were made up of small components. He also made the plum pudding model. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1884. -
Plum Pudding Model of an Atom
Like negatively charged "plums" contained in a positively charged "pudding," electrons are surrounded by a volume of positive charge in the plum pudding concept. This model was proposed by JJ Thompson. -
Albert Einstein
Einstein made the theory which states any liquid is made up of molecules and these molecules are random ceaseless motion. It took Einstein 9 years to get a job. -
Robert Millikan
Robert Millikan discovered that there is an electric charge in an electron. His experiments showed that atoms had a small dense positively charged nucleus. Millikan graduated from Oberlin College in 1891. -
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus. This is the small dense region containing protons and neutrons. He was the first person to Oceania to win a Nobel Prize. -
Pierre and Marie Curie
This couple discovered polonium and radium (1898), radioactivity (1903) and managed to isolate pure radium(1911). Marie Curie was the first person to get two noble prizes. -
Solar System Model of an Atom
The "solar system" model shows an atom as a massive positive entity (the nucleus/sun) with negative entities (electrons/planets) circling around it. This model was made by Ernest Rutherford. -
Neils Bohr
Neils Bohr proposed a theory based on a quantum theory about the hydrogen atom. This states that electrons moved around the nucleus but only in prescribed orbits. He won a Nobel Prize the same time as Einstein. -
Henry G. J. Mosely
Henry G. J. Mosely created the concept of the atomic number on the Periodic Table. He also created the law which is a systematic relation between wavelength and atomic number. He only lived 27 years. -
Erwin Shrödinger
Erwin Shrödinger established the wave mechanics formula which portrayed the electrons as waves, spread out in any given location. He also created the Electron Cloud Model. A moon crater was named after him. -
Electron Cloud Model of an Atom
A model of an atom in which the nucleus is small but massive and is surrounded by a cloud of swiftly moving electrons is known as an electron cloud model. This model was made by Erwin Shrödinger. -
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg discovered the Uncertainty Principle which states that a particle's position and moment can't be know exactly. He worked with Nobel Prize winner, Niels Bohr. -
James Chadwich
James Chadwich discovered the neutron (1932). In 1941, he wrote the final draft of the maud report which inspired the United States government to begin serious atomic bomb research efforts. He was a prisoner of war during World War One as he was studying with scientists in Germany.