INTRODUCTION

An atom is a particle that consist a nucleus of protons and neutrons

surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The atom is the basic particle of the chemical
elements, and the chemical elements are distinguished from each other by the
number of protons that are in their atoms. For example, any atom that contains 11
protons is sodium, and any atom that contains 29 protons is copper. The number
of neutrons defines the isotope of the element.

HISTORY OF ATOMIC THEORY

The basic idea that matter is made up of tiny indivisible particles is an old idea that
appeared in many ancient cultures. The word atom is derived from the ancient
Greek word atomos, which means "uncuttable". This ancient idea was based in
philosophical reasoning rather than scientific reasoning. Modern atomic theory is
not based on these old concepts. In the early 19th century, the scientist John
Dalton noticed that chemical elements seemed to combine with each other by
discrete units of weight, and he decided to use the word "atom" to refer to these
units, as he thought these were the fundamental units of matter. In 1811, Amedeo
Avogadro corrected a problem with Dalton's theory when he proposed that equal
volumes of gases at equal temperature and pressure contain the same number of
particles. Avogadro's law made it possible to accurately estimate the atomic masses
of elements and made a clear distinction between atoms and molecules.

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Another significant contribution to atomic theory was made in 1827 by botanist
Robert Brown, who noticed that dust particles floating in water seemed to move
randomly for no known reason. In 1905, Albert Einstein postulated that Brownian
motion was due to the movement of water molecules. The model and its validation
in 1908 by Jean Perrin supported atomic theory and particle theory.

DALTON’S LAW OF MULTIPLE PROPORTIONS

In the early 1800s, the English chemist John Dalton compiled experimental data
gathered by him and other scientists and discovered a pattern now known as the
"law of multiple proportions". There are two types of tin oxide: one is a grey
powder that is 88.1% tin and 11.9% oxygen, and the other is a white powder that is
78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen. Adjusting these figures, in the grey powder there is
about 13.5 g of oxygen for every 100 g of tin, and in the white powder there is
about 27 g of oxygen for every 100 g of tin. 13.5 And 27 form a ratio of 1:2.
Dalton concluded that in these oxides, for every tin atom there are one or two
oxygen atoms respectively (SnO and SnO2). Dalton knew that the
element carbon forms two oxides by combining with oxygen in different
proportions. A fixed mass of carbon, say 100 grams, may react with 133 grams of
oxygen to produce one oxide, or with 266 grams of oxygen to produce the other.
The ratio of the masses of oxygen that can react with 100 grams of carbon is
266:133 = 2:1, a ratio of small whole numbers. Dalton interpreted this result in his
atomic theory by proposing (correctly in this case) that the two oxides have one

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and two oxygen atoms respectively for each carbon atom. In modern notation the
first is CO (carbon monoxide) and the second is CO2 (carbon dioxide).

ISOMERISM

Scientists discovered some substances have the exact same chemical content
but different properties. For instance, in 1827, Friedrich Wöhler discovered
that silver fulminate and silver cyanate are both 107 parts silver, 12 parts carbon,
14 parts nitrogen, and 12 parts oxygen (we now know their formulas as both
AgCNO). In 1830 Jöns Jacob Berzelius introduced the term isomerism to describe
the phenomenon. In 1860, Louis Pasteur hypothesized that the molecules of
isomers might have the same composition but different arrangements of their
atoms. Structural isomerism is commonly referred to as constitutional isomerism.
The functional groups and the atoms in the molecules of these isomers are linked
in different ways. Different structural isomers are assigned different IUPAC names

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since they may or may not contain the same functional group Isomerism is the

phenomenon in which more than one compounds have the same chemical formula
but different chemical structures. Chemical compounds that have identical
chemical formulae but differ in properties and the arrangement of atoms in the
molecule are called isomers. Therefore, the compounds that exhibit isomerism are
known as isomers. The word “isomer” is derived from the Greek words “isos” and
“meros”, which mean “equal parts”. This term was coined by the Swedish chemist
Jacob Berzelius in the year 1830.

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BROWNIAN MOTION

In 1827, the British botanist Robert Brown observed that dust particles
inside pollen grains floating in water constantly jiggled about for no apparent
reason. In 1905, Albert Einstein theorized that this Brownian motion was caused
by the water molecules continuously knocking the grains about, and developed a
mathematical model to describe it. This model was validated experimentally in
1908 by French physicist Jean Perrin, who used Einstein's equation to calculate the
number of atoms in a mole and the size of atoms. This motion is named after the
botanist Robert Brown, who first described the phenomenon in 1827, while
looking through a microscope at pollen of the plant Clarkia pulchella immersed in
water. In 1900, almost eighty years later, the French mathematician Louis
Bachelier modeled the stochastic process now called Brownian motion in his
doctoral thesis, The Theory of Speculation (Théorie de la spéculation), prepared
under the supervision of Henri Poincaré. Then, in 1905, theoretical physicist Albert
Einstein published a paper where he modeled the motion of the pollen particles as
being moved by individual water molecules, making one of his first major
scientific contributions.

DISCOVERY OF NUCLEUS

J. J. Thomson thought that the negatively-charged electrons were distributed

throughout the atom in a sea of positive charge that was distributed across the

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whole volume of the atom. This model is sometimes known as the plum pudding
model. Ernest Rutherford and his colleagues Hans Geiger and Ernest
Marsden came to doubt the Thomson model after they encountered difficulties
when they tried to build an instrument to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of alpha
particles (these are positively-charged particles emitted by certain radioactive
substances such as radium). The alpha particles were being scattered by the air in
the detection chamber, which made the measurements unreliable. Thomson had
encountered a similar problem in his work on cathode rays, which he solved by
creating a near-perfect vacuum in his instruments. Rutherford did not think he'd
run into this same problem because alpha particles are much heavier than electrons.
According to Thomson's model of the atom, the positive charge in the atom is not
concentrated enough to produce an electric field strong enough to deflect an alpha
particle, and the electrons are so lightweight they should be pushed aside
effortlessly by the much heavier alpha particles.

BOHR MODEL

The Bohr model of the atom was proposed by Neil Bohr in 1915. It came into
existence with the modification of Rutherford’s model of an atom. Rutherford’s
model introduced the nuclear model of an atom, in which he explained that a

nucleus (positively charged) is surrounded by negatively charged electrons . In

1913, the physicist Niels Bohr proposed a model in which the electrons of an atom
were assumed to orbit the nucleus but could only do so in a finite set of orbits, and
could jump between these orbits only in discrete changes of energy corresponding

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to absorption or radiation of a photon. This quantization was used to explain why
the electrons' orbits are stable (given that normally, charges in acceleration,
including circular motion, lose kinetic energy which is emitted as electromagnetic
radiation, see synchrotron radiation) and why elements absorb and emit
electromagnetic radiation in discrete spectra.

THE SCHRODINGER MODEL

In 1925, Werner Heisenberg published the first consistent mathematical

formulation of quantum mechanics (matrix mechanics). One year earlier, Louis de
Broglie had proposed that all particles behave like waves to some extent, and in
1926 Erwin Schrödinger used this idea to develop the Schrödinger equation, a
mathematical model of the atom that described the electrons as three-
dimensional waveforms rather than points in space.

A consequence of using waveforms to describe particles is that it is mathematically

impossible to obtain precise values for both the position and momentum of a
particle at a given point in time. This became known as the uncertainty principle,
formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927. In this concept, for a given accuracy in
measuring a position one could only obtain a range of probable values for
momentum, and vice versa. This model was able to explain observations of atomic
behavior that previous models could not, such as certain structural
and spectral patterns of atoms larger than hydrogen. Thus, the planetary model of
the atom was discarded in favor of one that described atomic orbital zones around
the nucleus where a given electron is most likely to be observed.

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DISCOVERY OF NUCLEUS

The development of the mass spectrometer allowed the mass of atoms to be

measured with increased accuracy. The device uses a magnet to bend the trajectory
of a beam of ions, and the amount of deflection is determined by the ratio of an
atom's mass to its charge. The chemist Francis William Aston used this instrument
to show that isotopes had different masses. The atomic mass of these isotopes
varied by integer amounts, called the whole number rule.[33] The explanation for
these different isotopes awaited the discovery of the neutron, an uncharged particle
with a mass similar to the proton, by the physicist James Chadwick in 1932.
Isotopes were then explained as elements with the same number of protons, but
different numbers of neutrons within the nucleus. Dalton's ideas proved
foundational to modern atomic theory. However, one of his underlying
assumptions was later shown to be incorrect. Nuclear radioactivity was discovered
in 1896, and it was soon the subject of intense study by a number of the best
scientists in the world. Among them was New Zealander Lord Ernest Rutherford,
who made numerous fundamental discoveries and earned the title of “father of
nuclear physics Born in Nelson, Rutherford did his postgraduate studies at the
Cavendish Laboratories in England before taking up a position at McGill
University in Canada where he did the work that earned him a Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 1908. Dalton thought that atoms were the smallest units of
matter−−minus tiny, hard spheres that could not be broken down any further. This
assumption persisted until experiments in physics showed that the atom was
composed of even smaller particles. In this article, we will discuss some of the key
experiments that led to the discovery of the electron and the nucleus.

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NUCLEUS

All the bound protons and neutrons in an atom make up a tiny atomic nucleus, and
are collectively called nucleons. This is much smaller than the radius of the atom,
which is on the order of 105 fm. The nucleons are bound together by a short-ranged
attractive potential called the residual strong force. At distances smaller than 2.5
fm this force is much more powerful than the electrostatic force that causes
positively charged protons to repel each other. Atoms of the same element have the
same number of protons, called the atomic number. Within a single element, the
number of neutrons may vary, determining the isotope of that element. The total
number of protons and neutrons determine the nuclide. The number of neutrons
relative to the protons determines the stability of the nucleus, with certain isotopes
undergoing radioactive decay. The atomic nucleus is composed
of protons and neutrons (Figure 10.2.110.2.1). Protons and neutrons have
approximately the same mass, but protons carry one unit of positive charge (+e)
and neutrons carry no charge. These particles are packed together into an
extremely small space at the center of an atom. According to scattering
experiments, the nucleus is spherical or ellipsoidal in shape, and about 1/100,000th
the size of a hydrogen atom. If an atom were the size of a major league baseball
stadium, the nucleus would be roughly the size of the baseball. Protons and
neutrons within the nucleus are called nucleons. A nucleus that has a different
number of protons than neutrons can potentially drop to a lower energy state
through a radioactive decay that causes the number of protons and neutrons to
more closely match. As a result, atoms with matching numbers of protons and

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neutrons are more stable against decay, but with increasing atomic number, the
mutual repulsion of the protons requires an increasing proportion of neutrons to
maintain the stability of the nucleus.

NUCLEAR PROPERTIES

Atoms with equal numbers of protons but a different number of neutrons are
different isotopes of the same element. For example, all hydrogen atoms admit
exactly one proton, but isotopes exist with no neutrons (hydrogen-1, by far the
most common form, also called protium), one neutron (deuterium), two neutrons
(tritium) and more than two neutrons. The known elements form a set of atomic
numbers, from the single-proton element hydrogen up to the 118-proton
element oganesson. All known isotopes of elements with atomic numbers greater
than 82 are radioactive, although the radioactivity of element 83 (bismuth) is so
slight as to be practically negligible.

Stability of isotopes is affected by the ratio of protons to neutrons, and also by the
presence of certain "magic numbers" of neutrons or protons that represent closed
and filled quantum shells. These quantum shells correspond to a set of energy
levels within the shell model of the nucleus; filled shells, such as the filled shell of
50 protons for tin, confers unusual stability on the nuclide. Of the 251 known
stable nuclides, only four have both an odd number of protons and odd number of
neutrons: hydrogen-2 (deuterium), lithium-6, boron-10, and nitrogen-14.
(Tantalum-180m is odd-odd and observationally stable, but is predicted to decay
with a very long half-life.) Also, only four naturally occurring, radioactive odd-odd
nuclides have a half-life over a billion years: potassium-40, vanadium-

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50, lanthanum-138, and lutetium-176. Most odd-odd nuclei are highly unstable
with respect to beta decay, because the decay products are even-even, and are
therefore more strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects.

ORIGIN AND CURRENT STATE

Baryonic matter forms about 4% of the total energy density of the observable
universe, with an average density of about 0.25 particles/m3 (mostly protons and
electrons). Within a galaxy such as the Milky Way, particles have a much higher
concentration, with the density of matter in the interstellar medium (ISM) ranging
from 105 to 109 atoms/m3. The Sun is believed to be inside the Local Bubble, so the
density in the solar neighborhood is only about 103 atoms/m3. Stars form from
dense clouds in the ISM, and the evolutionary processes of stars result in the steady
enrichment of the ISM with elements more massive than hydrogen and helium. Up
to 95% of the Milky Way's baryonic matters are concentrated inside stars, where
conditions are unfavorable for atomic matter. The total baryonic mass is about 10%
of the mass of the galaxy;] the remainder of the mass is an unknown dark
matter. High temperature inside stars makes most "atoms" fully ionized, that is,
separates all electrons from the nuclei. In stellar remnants—with exception of their
surface layers—an immense pressure make electron shells impossible.

FORMATION

Electrons are thought to exist in the Universe since early stages of the Big Bang.
Atomic nuclei form in nucleosynthesis reactions. In about three minutes Big Bang
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nucleosynthesis produced most of the helium, lithium, and deuterium in the
Universe, and perhaps some of the beryllium and boron.

Ubiquitousness and stability of atoms relies on their binding energy, which means
that an atom has a lower energy than an unbound system of the nucleus and
electrons. Where the temperature is much higher than ionization potential, the
matter exists in the form of plasma—a gas of positively charged ions (possibly,
bare nuclei) and electrons. When the temperature drops below the ionization
potential, atoms become statistically favorable. Atoms (complete with bound
electrons) became to dominate over charged particles 380,000 years after the Big
Bang—an epoch called recombination, when the expanding Universe cooled
enough to allow electrons to become attached to nuclei. Since the Big Bang, which
produced no carbon or heavier elements, atomic nuclei have been combined
in stars through the process of nuclear fusion to produce more of the
element helium, and (via the triple alpha process) the sequence of elements from
carbon up to iron see stellar nucleosynthesis for details.

Isotopes such as lithium-6, as well as some beryllium and boron are generated in
space through cosmic ray spoliation. This occurs when a high-energy proton
strikes an atomic nucleus, causing large numbers of nucleons to be ejected.
Elements heavier than iron were produced in supernovae and colliding neutron
stars through the r-process, and in AGB stars through the s-process, both of which
involve the capture of neutrons by atomic nuclei. Elements such as lead formed
largely through the radioactive decay of heavier elements.

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CONCLUSION

The atom is the smallest particle of an element that take part in a chemical
reaction. The atom is made up of three subatomic particles:

o Protons
o Electrons
o Neutrons

Protons

o The proton is positively charged

o Is found in the centre of an atom called nucleus
o It has a relative mass 1
o The number of protons in a atom of an element is its Atomic number

Electrons

o The Electrons is negatively charged.

o Is found in fixed regions surrounding the centre of an atom called
energy levels/orbital.
o It has a relative mass 1/1840.
o The number of protons and electrons in a atom of an element is
always equal.

Neutrons

o The Neutron is neither positively nor negatively charged thus neutral.

o Like protons it is found in the centre of an atom called nucleus.

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o It has a relative mass 1.
o The number of protons and neutrons in a atom of an element is its
Mass number.

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