Frida Enya Mejía López

DEEP STUDY OF ATOMIC THEORY

Criterion D

i. Summarize the ways in which science is applied and used to address a specific
problem or issue
ii. Describe and summarize the various implications of using science and its application
in solving a specific problem or issue

iv. Document the work of others and sources of information used.

Try to answer the following questions as you watch the documentary “ATOM: Clash of titans”.
Some of the questions will require research and cannot be answered as the documentary goes.
Add the indicated information to your “atomic theory timeline”.

We will be watching this documentary for a few classes. It’s rather complicated and we will make
several stops on it. So don’t panic and try to stay focused. It’s worth your time.

1. What was Boltzmann’s most important contribution to science?

That he believes the atomic theory, that everything was made of atoms.
2. What was his relationship to the atomic theory and periodic table?
Boltzmann proposed to support the idea that we are all made of atoms. He was a supporter of the
atomic theory
3. Nowadays, it is known that depression is a serious condition. Apparently, Boltzmann
suffered from it. Find out who were Boltzmann’s main detractors. Why did they reject the
atom as a building block of matter? Try to get in Boltzmann’s shoes and infer the reason
for his suicide.
Because nobody believed that there was a building block matter but Einstein believed. Everyone
said he was crazy because he thought that there was a building block matter and nobody proved
that he was right so he finally suicide. And knowing that there is an atom would make the
affirmations of a lot of scientists to be wrong.
4. Add Boltzmann’s contributions to your timeline in the appropriate year.
1905-Einstein finds the existence of the atom
1906-Boltzmann hangs himself
5. What was Einstein’s most important contribution to the atomic theory?
He proved that atoms exist with Brownian motion. He argued that when pollen grains move in
water, it’s because something must be pushing them around. Now we know, it’s the interaction
between atoms of water.
6. What is Brownian motion?
The erratic random movement of microscopic particles in a fluid
7. Explain how Brownian motion helped prove the existence of atoms.
Brownian motion is due to fluctuations in the number of atoms and molecules colliding with a
small mass, causing it to move about in complex paths. This is nearly direct evidence for the
existence of atoms
 8. How could this discovery have changed Boltzmann’s destiny had it been heard of at his
time? Why do you think he never heard of Einstein’s work?
Boltzmann suffered from depression and everyone thought he was crazy, so if Einstein would told
him that he discovered the atoms, probably we wouldn’t suicide because everyone would know he
was right.
9. Add Einstein’s contributions to your timeline in the appropriate year (notice that
Einstein’s contributions do not end here. This information might expand later on).
10. Rutherford and Bohr had rather distinct likes and dislike regarding science. Compare and
contrast their taste in science. Then, explain how their differences could have helped
make huge progress when combined.
Rutherford was more of a mechanic, he liked to do things with his hands, and Bohr was all about
mathematics because he was an aristocrat, he would never touched the machines with his hands.
Their approaches were very different. They were ready to leave stuff behind so they could
discover new things, that what they had in common.
11. Watch the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bptQMu7utWY

Answer:

A. What is radioactivity?
The liberation of energy of an atom
B. How did Becquerel find out that radioactivity had nothing to do with sun rays, but
rather was produced by the elements and/or compounds (in his case, potassium
uranyl sulphate)?
He thought that the rock absorbed sun rays and they projected the image, but then, accidentally a
week he left the rock out when it was cloudy all week and it printed the same imagine so he
realize that the rock had his own energy
C. Add Becquerel’s contribution to your timeline in the appropriate year.
1896
D. What were Marie Curie’s most important contributions to the discovery of radiation
(they were three)?
Radioactivity of uranium depends on the amount of Uranium. The discovery of the polonium and
radium
E. What two elements did she use for her experiments? What two new elements did she
discover?
Polonium and Radium, Uranium and thorium
F. Add Curie’s contribution to your timeline in the appropriate year.
1898
12. When the gold-foil experiment was producing nothing, what was Rutherford’s weird
suggestion at Geiger?
1905 for weeks they didn’t see anything, just say particles passing through. So he suggested to
observe is there were any bouncing of particles between the foil.
13. Why did Rutherford think that the nucleus was about 10000 times smaller than the atom?
The next nucleus has to be far away is this means that it has to be very small. Most of the atom is
empty space
 14. Make a sketch in which you depict how most “alpha particles” pass the gold foil without
touching anything and then, one in every 8000 crashes into a gold nucleus and bounces
back.
15. The narrator says that “if you were to suck out all the empty space from every atom in my
body, then I would shrink down to a size smaller than a grain of salt. Of course, I would still
weight the same”. Why would he weight the same (have the same mass)?
Because you are only taking out the empty space, not the things that really weight some like the
protons and the neutrons
16. Expand Rutherford’s contribution in your timeline in the appropriate years.

17. As we had mentioned in class, the attraction force between the electrons and the nucleus
would shrink the atom immediately. This contradicted Rutherford’s atomic model. Explain
how this problem was solved by Niels Bohr (make your best guess). They can’t shrink
becuase there is electromagnetic energy caused by the interaction of the electronsThey
can’t shrink baches there is electromagnetic energy caused by the interaction of the
electrons
18. Explain why Bohr’s ideas were revolutionary and “nonsense” to other scientists at the
time.
It was simply not possible to visualize and people said they needed to see it to believe it

19. What did de Broglie propose for his PhD thesis? How did this support Einstein’s
“traditional ideas” on the atom?
That the pilot wave model theory was more understandable to Einstein that quantic jump
20. They say chemistry is heavily related to alcohol. This documentary shows the second
reason why. State that reason.
Because Bohr needed money to do experiments and Carlsberg brewery gave it to him. The first is
that you can make alcohol with chemistry so a lot of people do it because of that.
21. Explain Wolfang Pauli’s exclusion principle using your own words.
In a atom, no two electrons can have the same four electronic quantum numbers. Orbital can
contain just two electrons, both of them have opposite spins
22. Add Pauli’s contribution to your timeline in the appropriate year.
1925
23. State Erwin Schrodinger’s expansion of De Broglie’s electron wave model. Optional: State
Schrodinger’s equation. Try to understand and describe it.
Erwin Schrodinger theorized that the behavior of electrons within the atoms could be explained by
treating them mathematically as waves of matter, based on De Broglie’s idea.
24. Add Schrodinger’s contribution to your timeline in the appropriate year.
1917
25. Although Heisenberg decided to completely abandon the physical description of an atom,
he found a way to predict its behavior. He did this working along with Max Born (Nobel
Prize winner). What was this method called?
It is called Matrix Mechanics
26. Include Max Born’s contribution to your timeline in the appropriate year.
1929
27. State Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
That it’s impossible to know the exact position and momentum of a particle simultaneously
28. How does an atom change its behavior depending on whether it is observed or not?
The quantum ability to detect electrons could be altered by changing its electrical conductivity.
29. At this moment, it is clear that two different ideologies were vying to solve the mysteries
of the atom. Make a chart with two columns. Include all the scientists involved in this
competition in their corresponding column. Give the columns appropriate names
according to these physicists’ beliefs.

30. Include Heisenberg’s contribution to your timeline in the appropriate year.

1925
31. Expand Bohr’s contribution in your timeline in the appropriate years.
1906-1927
32. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle has a very deep implication: that there are certain limits
to the questions science can answer. “WE WILL SIMPLY HAVE TO FORGET ABOUT HOW AN
ATOM LOOKS LIKE”
Do you agree? Why or why not? Answer with a 100 word reflection on the impact and limitations
of science.

Science has helped us a lot over the years, and had helped us to discover very important things like
the atom, but, after all of that, we still don’t know how an atom looks. And years will pass
until we actually know how an atom really looks like. There’s just some things science
can’t explain and will never explain. Some example is life after death and reincarnation in
another human being. Science just says your body ends his period of life, and then, your
body just starts to rot, and they say, that your soul goes to heaven, but science can’t
explain that. Also, the reincarnation, because some people remember from their past life,
but science can’t explain that. There’s just some things science can’t explain, it just doesn’t
get there.

The radicals The traditionalist

Niels Bohr Albert Einstein

Werner Heisenberg Louis De Broglie
Max Born Erwin Schrodinger
Wolfgang Pauli