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Jun 1, 1300
Democritus in the 5th century B.C.
In the 5th century B.C. The Philosopher Democritus had found that the theories of matter were illogical and he thought up the idea that matter is made up of thousands of tiny particles. This was the first time anyone thought of matter in such a way. In truth Democritus was the one who thought up the atom. He also claimed that atoms cannot be split. He came up with the name for the atom based upon the greek word, Atomos, which means non-divisible. -
Jun 1, 1400
Aristotle in the mid 300 B.C.
The philospher Aristotle is known around the world as a genius. In the 4th Century B.C. Aristotle came up with the theory that were are only 4 elements. These were earth, air, water, and fire, and that those elements are what make up all matter on earth. He believed in reasoning over experimentation. This is what Aristotle based all of his philosophies. -
John Dalton
In the 19th Century John Dalton, or The Father of the Modern Atomic Theory, formed the basis of what we know as Chemistry in our time. Dalton was famous for taking the thoughts of Alchemists and puting them into more logical reason. He found that all elements are made up of atoms. He also came up with an arbitrary design that found the mass of atoms and from this he found that all atoms of the same element have the same masses -
Joseph John Thomson
This man is known mostly for his discovery of electrons. He discovered the electrons by shooting cathode rays down a tube and from that he found that there were particles smaller than atoms floating around what scientists had known as atoms. These particles were later found to be a major amount of the charge of an atom. These are known as electrons. -
Robert Millikan
Robert Millikan was one of J.J. Thomson's top competitors. Millikan took the electrons discovery and pushed it even further. He conducted an experiment on oil drops that he charged and allowed to hang. From knowing the mass of the oil drops and the gravity's pull he was able to find out just how powerful an electron's charge is. -
Max Planck
Max Planck was a German Physicist who develped the Quantom is the least amount of physical entity involved in an interaction. Max Planck was the man that figured this out. His method was so sound that Einstein used it to Study Photons. -
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford was one of the first men to realize the possibility of Neutrons. He also claimed that the nucleus of an atom held a positive charge and the rest of it was just empty space. We know that he was partly correct but his prediction of neutrons made up for his confusion. His discoveries were due to his very successful gold experiments. -
Neils Bohr
Neils Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to the understandingn of atomic structure and quantum mechanics. Bohr adapted Rutherford's nuclear structure to Planck's quantum theory. From this he made his Planetary Model of the Atom. Bohr created the model that we as non scientists recognize as an atoms structure. This means that he found that all atoms leave behind spectrum lines -
Louis deBroglie
Louis deBroglie, as the name suggests, was a French Physicist who through his studies discovered that Electrons have properties of particles and waves. We know that this is mostly due to the fact that they move so incredibly fast in a cloud of electrons. The matter wave is also known as the deBroglie wave which cleary it was named after him. -
Erwin Schrodinger
Erwin Schrodinger was a Austrian Physicist, theoretical biologist and a personal friend to Albert Einstein. Schrodinger showed through mathmatics that waves can be used to describe electrons. This idea was known but it wasn't quite proven until Him. With this he determined probability location of electrons in Atoms. -
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg was a German Theoretical Physicist who develped the cloud model. This is the model that we use for atoms today. He was truly a genius. Along withthis he developed the uncertainty principle. He also found that one cannot measure the mass of a particle and it's position at the same time. -
James Chadwick
This English Physicist dicsovered the neutron and proved it's existence. He also pushed the atomic model even further than it had already come. He was awarded the Noble Prize for Physics in 1935.
