The Atomic Model

History of the Atom

KHALIL SINCLAIR

500 BC
Alchemists
Egypt/China
Developed the theory that all metals
are composed of mercury and sulfur. Its
possible to change base metals into
gold. In Egypt it was a metallurgical
craft.

460 BC
Democritus
Greece
Inferred that everything was made up
of atoms. Atoms were physically
indivisible; between atom lies empty
space. Atoms are indestructible and
they are always moving. Infinite amount
of atoms, different shapes and sizes

380 BC Aristotle
Greece
Believed that all materials on Earth
were created by four elements, which
include earth, water, air, and fire. He
believed that all substances were made
up of small amounts of these four
elements of matter.

1787 1789
Lavoisier
France
In Methods of Chemical Nomenclature, he
invented the system of chemical
nomenclature which is still largely used
today; sulfuric acid, sulfates, and sulfites.
Elementary Treatsie of Chemistry was the
first modern chemical textbook. It presented
a unified view of new theories of chemistry
as it contained the Law of Conservation of
Mass.

1803 Dalton
English chemist who proposed the
Atomic Theory which stated that all
matter was composed of small
indivisible particles called atoms. These
atoms possess unique characteristics
and weight for elements. He also stated
that three types of atoms exist: simple,
compound, and complex.
Daltons atomic model. A round
hollow sphere with neither
electrons, protons, or neutrons.

1821 1832
Faraday
England
Published his work on electromagnetic
rotation; principal behind the electric
motor.
Discovered electromagnetic induction.
This is the principle behind the electric
transformer and generator.

1869 Mendeleev
Siberia
Published the periodic table in the
Principles of Chemistry. The elements
were arranged by their atomic mass.

1869 Mendeleev

Mendeleevs version of the periodic table

1873 James Clark

Maxwell
England
Created a set of four linear partial
differential equations that summarize
the properties of the electromagnetic
field.

1879 Crookes
England
Developed the Crookes tube and in it
produced cathode rays for the first
time. He also invented the radiometer
and spinthariscope.

1887 Hertz
Germany
Discovers the photoelectric effect. Hertz
also demonstrates experimentally that
electromagnetic waves exist.

1895 Wilhelm
Roentgen
Germany
Discovers X-rays in experiments which
electron beams in plasma

One of the first X-rays

1896 Henri
Becquerel
France
Found that rays coming from uranium
ore affected a photographic plate like Xrays did. The rays were not from an
external source and were more
powerful than those from a sample of
pure uranium. His experiment led to the
discovery of natural radioactivity.

1897 Thomson
England
First to measure the electron.
Developed the plum pudding model of
the atom. Describes the atom as a
slightly positive sphere with small
electrons inside.

1898 Rutherford
New Zealand/England
Inferred a small, dense, positivelychanged nucleus as the result of the
alpha particle scattering gold foil
experiment.

1898 Curie
France
Studied and identified radioactive
elements. Discovers that rays emitted
by uranium salt samples make
surrounding air electrically conductive,
and measures the emitted rays
intensity. Through a systematic search
of substances. Curie finds that thorium
compounds, like those of uranium,
emitted Becquerel rays.

1900 Max Planck

Germany
Stated that radiation is quantized.
Suggests that electromagnetic energy
could only be emitted in quantized
form, the energy could only be a
multiple of an elementary unit E = hv,
where h is Plancks constant and v is
the frequency of the radiation.

1905 Einstein
Switzerland
Proposed the quantum of light in which
he states that light behaves like a
particle but also has wave nature,
giving it a dual nature. Stated the
equivalence of energy and mass
through the theory of special relativity.

1908 Geiger
Germany
Demonstrated that energy and mass are
conserved in atomic processes

1909 Millikan
United States
Publishes the results of his oil drop
experiment, in which he precisely determines
the electric charge of the electron.
Determination of the fundamental unit of
electric charge makes it possible to calculate
the Avogadro constant (the number of atoms
or molecules in one mole of any substance)
and thereby to determine the atomic wright
of the atoms of each element.

1911 Rutherford
New Zealand/England
Bohr joined Rutherford. He found that the ratio
of energy in electrons and the frequency of their
orbits around the nucleus was equal to Plancks
constant. It was suggested the revolutionary
idea that electrons jump between energy
levels in quantum fashion, that is, without ever
existing in and in-between state. When an atom
absorbs or gives of energy the electron jumps
to higher or lower orbits.

1914 Moseley
Turkey
Studying under Rutherford, Moseley
developed the application of X-ray
spectra to study atomic structure. He
measured the wavelengths of the X-rays
given off by certain metal. Moseley was
able to determine the number of
positive charges in the nucleus of an
atom. This was the first concept of the
atomic number.

1922 Bohr
Denmark
Stated that electrons could only orbit
the nucleus is successively larger orbits
around the nucleus. The outer orbits
could hold more electrons. The
electrons in the outermost shell
determine the properties of the atom.
He also inferred that when an electron
moves from an outer orbit to an orbit it
emits a quantum of energy, a photon, in
the form of light.

1923 de Broglie
France
Published the theory of particle-wave
duality. This explains how electrons
possessed a dual nature; properties of
both particles and waves

1923 Millikan
United States
Further developed the atomic model
with his work on the elementary charge
of electricity and on the photoelectric
effect. This was the possible ejection of
the electrons from the surface, usually
a metal, in response to incident light.

1925 Wolfgang
Pauli
Germany
Outlines the Pauli exclusion principle
which states that no two identical
fermions may occupy the same quantum
state simultaneously, a fact that
explains many features of the periodic
table.

1927 Heisenberg
Denmark
He determined that the only way to
describe the location of an electron in
an atom is through probability
distribution. This principle of his forms
the basis of the electron cloud model.

1930
Schroedinger
Australia
Developed wave mechanics, which
describe the behavior of quantum
systems for bosons. Through the
creating of his model, he was able to
further increase ones knowledge of the
atom by providing more information on
its atomic structure (i.e., the electron
cloud)

1932 Chadwick
England
Discovered the neutron using evidence
collected by Irene Curie, who
discovered that when beryllium was
bombarded, with positively charged
alpha particles a beam with a high
penetrating power was created.
Chadwick discovered that this beam
was not deflected by either electric or
magnetic fields, meaning it contained
neutral-particles; neutrons.

1938 Meitner,
Hahn, Strassman
Germany
Found that when Uranium is bombarded
by neutrons it produces smaller nuclei
roughly half the size of the original
Uranium nucleus. Realized that Hahn
was splitting the Uranium nucleus,
something never done before.

Bibliography
http://atomictimeline.net/index.php
http://www.softschools.com/timelines/a
tomic_theory_timeline/95
/
http://hi.fi.tripod.com/timeline/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom
http://www.barcodesinc.com/articles/tim
eline-on-atomicstructure.htm