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Democritus
Ancient Greek Era. Created an atomic theory for the universe. This atomic theory shows resemblance to the ones created in the 19th century. -
Antoine Lavoisier
He introduced the law of conservation and mass, he is considered the “Father of Modern Chemistry.” He helped with thinking about the elements which contributes to the atomic theory. -
John Dalton
His two century old theory is still considered a valid chemical thought. He kept a daily weather report for 57 years, leading to his study of natural gases, helping him along the way with him researching the atomic theory. -
Michael Fraday
He studied the effect of electricity ion solutions, coined term “electrolytes” as of splitting of molecules with electricity. He was not a proponent of atomism. -
Henri Becquerel
During his study on x-rays, he discovered that chemicals were spontaneously decomposing
and gave off very penetrating rays. -
JJ Thomson
He determined the charge of mass radio of an electron. He studied “conal rays”; which are associated with the proton H+. -
Marrie & Pierre Currie
They found an atomic compund og uranium, They also contributed to the understanding of atoms, even though they didn’t find the immense amount of energy within an atom. -
Max Plank
He discovered Plank's constant. He looked into how temperature affects black orbs, and discovered what quanta has to do with hot glowing matter. He discovered the effects of heat on ions, which is a part of an atom. -
Albert Einstein
Albert was the first person to show existence of atoms. He did so with a regular mocroscope. He studied liquid atoms by observing the molecules move around in zig zag motion. -
Robert Millikan
He performed experiments to figure out the charge of an electron. One of the experiments was the oil drop experiment in which he dropped oil to determine how long they fell by the amount of electrons they picked up. -
Niels Bohr
He created an atom model called the Bohr Model. The Bohr model depicts what the atom looks like. This helped the understanding of an atom by showing what it looked like, and also by sharing his information with other scientists. -
James Chadwick
He proved the existence of neutrons. -
Ernest Rutherford
He studies the nucleus of atoms, and found described it as: very dense, very small and positively charged. -
Joseph Louis
He produced the law of constant composition. This helped lead to the proposal of atomic theory in 1803. -
Aristotle
Aristotle, though not contributing much but his opinion, helped the study of the atom by challenging other scientists with his beliefs. He believed that all things on Earth are made of the five elements- water, fire, earth, aether, and air. By putting this out into the scientific world, he allowed other scientists to see it, and try to prove him wrong.
