Greek philosopher,

Democritus used the

400 B.C.E. term atom, atomos
which means “indivisible”.

John Dalton adapted

Democritus’ theory into the
1803 first modern atomic model.
His version of an atom was
like a small solid sphere.

J.J. Thompson came up with a new model

that was a solid sphere with small electron
connected to it in which it is called
1897
the plum pudding model.
To do this, he did an
experiment with cathode ray
to discover electrons.

Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus,

therefore his
model has the
1911 protons and
neutrons in
the center, with
electrons around.

Niels Bohr was able to answer why the

electrons did not collapse into the nucleus
using the planetary model
1913 of Rutherford as his basis
and his knowledge of
energy and quantum
physics.

Erwin Schrodinger developed a model which

assumes that the electron is a wave and tries to
describe the regions in
1926 space, or orbitals, where
electrons are mostly to be
found and it is called the
cloud model.

James Chadwick bombarded beryllium atoms with

alpha particles. An unknown radiation was produced.
He interpreted this radiation as
1932 being composed of particles with
a neutral electrical charge and the
approximate mass of a proton.
This particle became known as
neutron.