"The discovery of atom and the concept of atomic number"

Cathode Ray Tubes - A high vacuum tube in which cathode rays produce a luminous image.

Gold Foil Experiment – A piece of gold foil was hit with alpha particles, which have a positive
charge.

Cyclotron - a circular machine that accelerates particles or nuclei to collide them with other
nuclei.

1897 - JJ Thomson was working with Cathode Ray Tubes, in his experiments he discovered the
presence of a negatively charged particle inside an atom he called them corpuscles but now we
call them electrons.

He thought that these negatively charged particles were embedded in a positively charged atom,
BUT this was proven wrong when in 1911.

1911 - Ernest Rutherford did the gold foil experiment, by using a very thin gold foil and bombarded it
with alpha particles and he also surrounded it with a screen that can detect alpha particles. He
observed that most of the alpha particles passed through the foil and he also observed that some
of the alpha particles were deflected sideways and some bounced back he concluded that the
positive charged is concentrated at the center while the negative charged orbits around it like how
planets revolved around the sun. Later on he also discovered the nucleus of an atom where it has
positively charged that he called protons.

1932 - James Chadwick - student of Ernest Rutherford. He did an experiment with alpha particles
and beryllium atom he fired beryllium with alpha particles, a form of radiation was produced he
observed that this has the same mass as proton but it has no charge, he later called these
Neutrons.

We now know what inside the atom, the center is the nucleus where protons and neutrons are
found and orbiting around it is the electrons.

When the periodic table was first arranged by Dmitri Mendeleev it was arranged according the
atomic mass even though there were some inconsistencies for example Cobalt and Nickel. Cobalt
was placed first even though cobalt had greater mass number. But they can't change its position
due to the properties of cobalt is same with the Rh.
All of these confusions were solved when Henry Moseley proved that the major properties of an
element are determined by the atomic number.

Before 1600's a lot of alchemists transmute metals to create new elements. Example is lead and
gold but they were unsuccessful because they were just simple mixing chemicals. If they want to
change the identity of lead which has an atomic number of 82 they should have taken three protons
off of the atom and it will reduced its atomic number to 79 which will turn to gold.

20th century scientists/alchemists discovered nuclear reaction they used this knowledge to
synthesize new elements in the laboratory. The periodic table of elements from pre-world war II
there were a lot of missing elements like #43, #85, #87, #61 and even #93-#100. The heaviest
element before is the Uranium.

1937 - two Italian scientist, Carlo Perrier, Emilio Segre discovered element number 43 it was
named Technetium the word was derived from the Greek word Tekhnetos which means Artificial,
because the Technetium is the first element was synthesize in the laboratory.

What they did was they bombarded Molybdenum with deuteron which has 1 proton and 1 neutron.
When this deuteron attached in the nucleus of molybdenum proton will be added and neutrons are
emitted. Since 1 proton was added into molybdenum it will turn to element 43 or Technetium.

1940 - Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross McKenzie, Emilio Segre discovered the number 85 element.
They cyclotron to collide alpha particles with Bismuth. Since alpha particle has 2 protons and
Bismuth has 83 protons these two repel each other since the are both positive charged but with the
help of cyclotron the particles are moving fast enough to overcome this electrostatic repulsion. The
process is same with technetium they bombarded alpha particle to Bismuth and it became
Astatine.

1940 - Physicist Philip Abelson and Edwin Mcmillan discovered the very first trans uranium
element. Trans uranium elements mean elements heavier than uranium. This experiment is about
Uranium where this element was added a neutron to become a new element, now you must be
wondering why it was changed to a new element when no protons was added. Here's waht
happened the neutron was added in the nucleus of the uranium and then atoms that has many
neutrons compared to protons have greater tendency to undergo Beta decay, when this happens 1
neutron will turn into a proton and a beta particle is released this will synthesize the new element
neptunium named after the planet Neptune which was the planet after the Uranus.
The next element next to Neptunium is Plutonium at the year 1940 by Glenn Seaborg, Arthur Wahl,
Joseph Kennedy, and Edwin McMillan. This time they bombarded Uranium with deuterons in a
cyclotron. Since deuterons has 1 protons Uranium becomes neptunium first and one of the
neutron will undergo beta decay which means 1 neutron will become 1 proton turning neptunium
to plutonium.

Element 95 was synthesized by neutron capture, two neutrons absorbed by element 94 then one
neutron turns into proton. While on the other hand elements 96, 97, 98, and 101 were synthesized
through alpha particles bombardment in cyclotron. The discovery of element 99 and 100 was
interesting they were found from the debris of a hydrogen bomb explosion.

Elements heavier than element 103 are considered super heavy elements, they are usually
produced and synthesize by bombarding heavy nuclear targets with heavy projectiles. Example
bombardment of berkelium with calcium, Organesson was a bombardment of californium and
calcium.