History of Matter

Precision Balance

3000 BCE

The creation of the precision balance stemmed from goods that could not be counted needing to be priced. The Egyptians needed a way to measure liquids, grains, or products. Over time it was improved and some important contributors to it were Leonardo da Vinci, Roberval, and Salter.

Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan

700 BCE

Jabir was originally from Persia and was researching and experimenting in chemistry in the 700's. He created the alembic which is a simple way to distill liquids by connecting two bottles with a tube and using heat. He also created the image of chemical bonds linking elements together. Overall Jabir laid groundwork for the systematic approach of how to experiment in Chemistry.

Democritus

400 BCE

around 400 BC Greece - He developed the idea of atoms. He thought that at some point, a substance wouldn’t be able to be split in half anymore and he called these basic matter particles ‘atoms’. Without this idea of atoms, none of the discoveries of atoms or elements would have been made since they wouldn't have a base to work on.

Aristotle

350 BCE

In Greece around the 300 BC century, Aristotle distinguished liquids, solids, and gases. He theorized that elements were building blocks for all substances and studied the mixing and decomposing of substances.

Albert Magnus

1250

Magnus was a scientist from Germany in the 1200's. He isolated -make it into its pure, uncombined elemental state- arsenic which was the first element to be isolated since antiquity. He was also a Christian and by studying and practicing science he showed that science could be furthered and believed in by Christians and they d no always oppose each other.

Printing Press

1400

Printing press was invented around 1400 in the Roman Empire by Gutenberg. Printing press led to widespread knowledge and scientific information was more available and gave many people a better understanding of the world around them.

Vacuum Tube and Electric Generator

1650

Von Guericke -a scientist from the Roman Empire- invented the Vacuum Tube and the Electric Generator. The vacuum tube pulls air out of the vessel it is connected to. When air is pulled from vessels it demonstrates the power of air pressure. 1673- The electrical generator produces static electricity by applying friction against a revolving ball of sulfur. This invention allowed Guericke to see electroluminescence.

Robert Boyle

1664

Robert Boyle was a scientist from Ireland who created Boyle's Law. Boyle's Law states that when temperature stays at a constant the pressure and volume of the gas have an inversely proportionate relationship. He also wrote the "skeptical Chymist which hypothesizes matter is made up of atoms and that phenomenons are just a result of atoms colliding. This is a cornerstone in modern chemistry.

Henry Cavendish

1785

1785 England - Cavendish conducted an investigation of the composition of atmospheric air. He observed that, when he had determined the amounts of nitrogen and oxygen, there remained a volume of gas amounting to 1/120 of the volume of the nitrogen. His general theory of heat contained the principle of the conservation of heat and the concept of the mechanical equivalent of heat.

Lavoisier

1789

1789 France - Laviosier states that mass is neither created nor destroyed in any ordinary chemical reaction. He proved that the mass of the products in a chemical reaction is equal to the mass of the reactants.

Avogadro

1796

Avogadro was a scientist in the late 1700's and early 1800's from Italy who created Avogadro's Law and Avogadro's number. Avogadro's law states that gases of the same volume that are at the same temperature and pressure have the same amount of molecules. Avogadro's number is 6.022 x 10^23 which describes the number of atoms, ions, or molecules in one mole of substance. His discoveries were important for finding atomic weight and for coming up with the ideal gas law.

Dalton

1808

1803/1808 England - He created an "atomic theory" with spherical solid atoms based on measurable properties of mass. He believed atoms of different elements could be universally distinguished based on their varying atomic weights. He became the first scientist to explain the behavior of atoms in terms of the measurement of weight. Dalton also stated the fact that atoms cannot be created or destroyed based on the Law of the Conservation of Mass.

Mendeleev

1855

Mendeleev was a scientist from Russia in mid to late 1800's. He is considered to be the most important contributor to what is now the current periodic table. He organized elements in rows according to their atomic mass and into columns by their physical and chemical properties. He also created the Periodic Law. He is considered the father of the periodic table and his version of the periodic table was a visual representation of the Periodic Law.

William Ramsey

1894

1894-1903 England - To build upon John Strutt's work, Ramsey used methods to remove all known gases from the air and stated the discovery of argon and later helium. He showed that the positions of helium and argon in the periodic table of elements indicated that at least three more noble gases may exist. He also showed that helium is continually produced during the radioactive decay of radium, crucial to the understanding of nuclear reactions

J.J Thomson

1897

1897 England - He constructed experiments to find a definitive and comprehensive answer about the nature of cathode rays. He showed that cathode rays were composed of a previously unknown negatively charged particle, and is credited with a discovery and identification of the electron.

Marie and Pierre Curie

1898

1898 France - They worked in the study of radioactivity, discovered the elements radium and polonium.

Rutherford

1911

1911 England - He made up the Rutherford model, stating that a very small positively charged nucleus was orbited by electrons. Rutherford designed an experiment to use the alpha particles emitted by a radioactive element as probes to the unseen world of atomic structure.

Bohr

1913

1913 Denmark - The motion of the electrons in the Rutherford model was unstable because the electrons would lose energy and spiral into the nucleus. To fix this problem, Bohr modified the Rutherford model by requiring that the electrons move in orbits of fixed size and energy. This new model is known as the Bohr atomic model. We have more knowledge about the atom’s structure and about the radiation that is emitted from it because of these investigations.

Louis de Broglie

1924

1924 France - Louis' ideas served as the basis for developing the general theory of wave mechanics. This theory has transformed our knowledge of physical phenomena on the atomic scale.

Schrodinger

1926

Schrodinger was a scientist from Austria in the 1900's. Schrodinger used the atom model and applied mathematical calculations to find the likelihood of an electron being in a certain place. This is the Quantum mechanical model of the atom. His equations of how to locate electrons greatly contributed to what would become the Atomic Theory.

Heisenberg

1927

1927 Germany - He discovered the uncertainty principle, proposing that an electrons position and velocity cannot be simultaneously known. He helped establish quantum physics.
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Chadwick

1932

1932 England - He proved that neutrons existed. Chadwick was able to prove that the radiation causing the ejected particles in the Joliot-Curie experiments was much more energetic than could be accounted for by photons. This furthered our knowledge on the structure of atoms.

Irene Joliot-Curie

1932

1932 France - Irène Joliot-Curie performed experiments with the radiation from bombarding an element with alpha particles. They showed that if it fell on paraffin or other hydrogen-containing compounds, it could eject protons with very high energy from that substance. She discovered artificial radioactivity.

Rosalind Franklin

1938

Rosalind Franklin was a scientist from London who worked with X-ray crystallography in the mid 1900's and ended up photographing what would be essential to discovering the shape of DNA. She realized that DNA was in a helical shape with phosphates surrounding it. This discovery contributed to the understanding of DNA replicating itself.

Linus Pauling

1939

Linus Pauling was a scientist from the United States in the 1900's. He published his book "The Nature of the Chemical Bond". In his book he explained the nature of a chemical bond and how it can be used to better understand structures of complex substances. It is said to be the foundation of modern chemistry and molecular biology.

Lise Meitner

1939

Meitner was a scientist from Austria in the 1900's. Meitner discovered that the when the uranium atom was bombarded with neutrons it would split to form pairs of atomic nuclei, which is nuclear fission. She also discovered new elements, Meitnerium even being named after her. This would help lead to the atomic bomb being created.