Democritus of Abdera - 400 B.C.

Bio/Background:

Born: in Abdera in about 460 BCE, or according to some, was born closer to 490 BCE.

Teacher: Leucippus - who also had an atomic theory, which Democritus later built upon.

Atomos = Greek word for "indivisible"

Theory:
Democritus was the first to identify the possibility of an atom, which would be the smallest piece
of matter

He theorized that atoms are inpenetrable and have a density proportionate to their volume

His theory states that atoms ate internal as is motion

The fundamental idea in Democritus's theory is that nature behaves like a machine, it is nothing
more than a highly complex mechanism
Proved his theories with math
~Aristotle did not agree with Democritus's theories~

Aristotle - mid 300's B.C.

Aristotle was a philosopher/Greek philosopher

Born in 384 BCS in a Greek colony.

He was a student of Plato, who in turn studied under Socrates

Studied: Physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics,
government, ethics, biology, zoology.He believed in reasoning rather than scientific experimentation.

First to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology,
and ethics.He disagreed with Democritus an his theories.

He added to the four basic elements, fire, earth, air and water adding one more element called
"Aether", which he claimed composed heavenly bodies.

Aristotle thought that the validity of an argument was based on it's structure: thesis.

Views on physical science influenced Renaissance

Joseph John Thomson- 1897

Born: Cheetham Hill, a suburb of Manchester on December 18th

1856
Accomplishments:
Described nature of cathode rays
Plum pudding model of an atom
Discovered the electron
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906
Life:
Thomson expressed an early interest in atomic structure which was reflected in
his Treatise on the Motion of Vortex Rings
Treatise on the Motion of Vortex Rings won him the Adams Prize in 1884
1886 - Thomson visited America to give a course of four lectures, which
summarized his current researches
Knighted in 1908
Discoveries:
Upon his return from America, Thomson achieved the most brilliant work of his
life - an original study of cathode rays culminating in the discovery of the electron in
1897.
Discovered a method for separating different kinds of atoms and molecules by
the use of positive rays.
Plum Pudding Model:
Composed of electrons (which Thomson still called "corpuscles") surrounded by
a soup of positive charge to balance the negative.

Ernest Rutherford - 1911, 1915, 1918

Life/ Background:
Born on August 30, 1871
His parents were Martha Thompson, an English schoolteacher, and James Rutherford, a Scottish
wheelwright
In 1894, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship
This enabled him to go to Trinity College, Cambridge as a research student
Subjects of Study:

ERNEST RUTHERFORD

Gold foil experiment

a.

Under the supervision of Rutherford, Geiger and Marsden performed the gold foil
experiment

b.

prove Thomsons plum pudding model

c.

To begin the experiment, they aimed a beam of alpha particles at a piece of gold foil

d.

Polonium was put into a lead box that sent out alpha particles to a thin sheet of gold foil.
The foil was then surrounded by a luminescent zinc sulfide screen that served as a backdrop
for the alpha particles to appear on

Atom has a small positive nucleus, remainder is empty space

Predicted existence of neutrons

He was born on August 30, 1871

His mother, Martha Thompson, was an English schoolteacher

James Rutherford, a Scottish wheelwright, moved to New Zealand

In 1894, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship, which enabled him to go
to Trinity College, Cambridge, and research as a student

Worked under JJ Thomson

In 1919 he accepted an invitation to become Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge.

first researches, in New Zealand, were concerned with the magnetic properties of iron
exposed to high-frequency oscillations,

His second paper was Magnetic Viscosity

While he was at the Cavendish Laboratory, he invented a detector for electromagnetic

waves

He worked with Thomson on the behavior of the ions observed in gases that had been
treated with X-rays

studied the "emanation" of thorium and discovered a new noble gas, an isotope of radon,
which was later to be known as thoron

"disintegration theory" of radioactivity which regards radioactive phenomena as atomic not molecular - processes.

scattering of alpha rays and the nature of the inner structure of the atom which caused such
scattering led to the postulation of his concept of the "nucleus", his greatest contribution to
physics

Niels Bohr - 1912

Neils Bohr

Neils Bohr was born on October 7, 1885, and died on November 18, 1962. He worked under Sir J.J.
Thomson in the Cavendish Laboratory in 1911. However, at the same time he was also developing his
own theories. In 1912, he worked for Professor Rutherford.
He came up with the planetary model of the atom, also called the Bohr Model. In this model, he
shows that electrons travel in specified energy levels. He also determined that spectrum lines are
produced when electrons move.

John Dalton- 1803, 1805, 1808

Who: Known as the father of modern atomic theory

Modern Atomic Theory: includes the elements the compose atoms
5 Parts to his theory:
Elements are made of extremely small particles called atoms.
Atoms of a given element are identical in size, mass, and other properties; atoms of
different elements differ in size, mass, and other properties.
3. Atoms cannot be subdivided, created, or destroyed.
4. Atoms of different elements combine in simple whole-number ratios to form chemical
compounds.
5. In chemical reactions, atoms are combined, separated, or rearranged.
1.
2.

About Dalton:
Quaker in Cumberland England
Was a teacher and public lecturer

Moved to Manchester where he had more resources - so he pumped out his first
paper about color blindness - called "Daltonism"

Dalton's View of Atomism:

Came to his view through meterology
He kept daily weather records from 1787 until his death (first book
was Meteorological Observations)
Claimed that air was not a chemical solvent, but a mechanical system
Law of partial pressures: The pressure exerted by each gas in a mixture is
independent of the pressure exerted by other gases, and where the total pressure is the
sum of the pressures of each gas.
He proceeded to calculate atomic weights from percentage compositions of
compounds, using an arbitrary system to determine the likely atomic structure of each
compound.
Picture: Elements and their combinations as described in John Dalton's New System of Chemical
Philosophy

Solid Sphere Model

Erwin Schrodinger - 1926

Erwin Schrodinger

Erwin Schrodinger, 12 August 1887 4 January 1961, is well known for the Schrodinger Equation which
he received a Nobel Prize in Physics for in 1933. The Schrodinger Equation is "the wave equation of non
relativistic quantum mechanics". He showed, through math, that waves can be used to describe electrons
in atoms.

He also built off of Bohr's model of the atom with the Electron Cloud
Model. This model depicts the floating motion of the electrons, rather then them having a set path of
travel. He determined the probability location of electrons in atoms. According to Schrodinger, electrons

stuck in their orbits would set up "standing waves". He said that you could describe only the probability of
where an electron could be, it was not definite. The distributions of these probabilities formed areas of
space about the nucleus were called orbitals. An orbital is a wave function describing the state of a single
electron in an atom.

Quantum Mechanical Model

Werner Heisenberg - 1927

Born: December 5th, 1901in Germany

Worked with Niels Bohr at the University of Copenhagen
"Uncertainty principle"
It is not possible to obtain precise values of both position and momentum of a particle at the same
time

"Cloud" model aka quantum mechanical model

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.