-
460
Democritus
In 460 BC Democritus came up with the first idea of atoms, suggesting that you had to eventually come to where you couldn't break anything up into a smaller piece and the smallest it could be broken down into was an atom. -
Dalton
In the 1800's John Dalton began testing chemicals and he found lumpy structures in them, which were later discovered to be atoms. -
Thomson
In 1897, JJ Thomson discovered an electron and came up with the first idea of what the structure of an atom was like. -
Planck
IN 1900, Max Planck discovered that if you vibrate atoms you can measure their energy. -
Einstein
In 1905, Albert Einstein wrote a paper about the photo electric effect which is light apsorbtion which releases electrons from an atom. -
Bohr
In 1912, Niels Bohr came up with the theory that electrons do not spiral into the nucleus. -
Rutherford
In 1919, Ernest Rutherford fidentified the particles of the nucleus as discrete positive charges of matter. -
Pauli
In 1924, Wolfgang Pauli came up with a theory that electrons spin like a top while they orbit around the nucleus. -
de Broglie
In 1924, Louis de Broglie showed what matter waves would look like. -
Heisenberg
In 1927, Werner Heisenberg came up with a theory called matrix mechanics and it explained the behavior of atoms, which was a break through paper. -
Schrödinger
In 1926, Erwin Schrödinger created a symbol (psi) to describe the make up of waves the atoms gave out. -
Born
In 1926, Max Born came up with a theory about "psi". This idea was that they were "waves of chance" and went back and forth from the electron to the nucleus. -
Dirac
In 1928, Paul Dirac produced equations which predicted a positive charged electron. -
Chadwick
In 1932, James Chadwick discovered the neutron. -
Yukawa
In 1935, Hideki Yukawa suggested that exchange forces might also describe the strong force between nucleons.
