The Atom

1) Dalton’s Atomic Model (1803)

This model stated that all matter was made up

of tiny particles named atoms, his ideas were:

 Atoms cannot be broken down into

anything smaller.
 The atom for each element is identical to
each other.
 Dalton stated that during chemical
reactions the atoms rearrange
themselves to make different substances.

2) Thomson’s Model (1897)

JJ Thomson was the first person to discover the electron, he

was also the person to create the ‘plum pudding model’. In this
model:

 Atoms are spheres of positive charge.

 The electrons are scattered across the inside.

3) Rutherford’s Nuclear Model (1911)

It was Rutherford’s gold foil experiment which led to the discovery that atoms have a small
dense positively charged nucleus at the centre. His ideas were:

 Most of an atom’s mass was found in the nucleus.

 Electrons were depicted in orbits.
 Rutherford concluded that most of an atom is empty space.
 Due to the positive nucleus and the negative electrons was responsible for holding the
electrons in space.