Discovery of the Subatomic

Particles
THE ATOMOS OF DEMOCRITUS
● solid

● indestructible

● collides with each other

● can form clusters

MODIFICATION OF DEMOCRITUS’ ATOMIC MODEL
● There are smaller subatomic particles.

● Two types of the smaller particles are charged.

● Two types of the smaller particles are found at the center.

● The particles are very small and the atom is mostly space.
SUBATOMIC PARTICLES
● Protons - positively charged and found at the nucleus.
Discovered by Ernest Rutherford.

● Neutrons - neutral and found at the nucleus. Discovered by

James Chadwick.

● Electrons - negatively charged and move around the

DALTON’S SOLID SPHERE MODEL
● The atom is indestructible.

● The atom is a solid particle.

● Atoms of the same element have the same properties.

● The atom can combine to form compounds.

DALTON’S SOLID SPHERE MODEL
THOMSON’S PLUM PUDDING MODEL

● The atom is divisible into charged particles.

● The atom is made of a massive mass with a positive

charge.

● Electrons are negatively charged particles that are

embedded on the body of the atom.
THOMSON’S PLUM PUDDING MODEL
RUTHERFORD’S NUCLEAR MODEL

● The atom is composed of positive and negatively charged

particles.

● The nucleus is at the center of the atom and this is where

the mass of the atom is concentrated.
RUTHERFORD’S NUCLEAR MODEL

● Protons are the positively charged particles and are found

at the nucleus.

● Electrons are the smaller negatively charged particles and

they move around the nucleus.

● The atom is made up of mostly space.

RUTHERFORD’S NUCLEAR MODEL
 The development of the atomic structure started with the
idea presented by Democritus that all matter is made up
1 of small indivisible particles called atomos. This idea is
widely known in ancient Greece as atomism.

A more precise description of the atom was presented by

2 John Dalton later on. In his solid sphere model, he
imagined an atom to be extremely small and indivisible.
 JJ Thomson’s cathode ray tube experiment allowed him
to discover the electron. He then proposed the plum
3
pudding model where an atom is presented as a uniform
positively charged sphere embedded with electrons.

The plum-pudding model of JJ Thomson was challenged

when a physicist named Ernest Rutherford performed a
4 gold foil experiment. The results of his experiment lead
to the discovery of the nucleus, a dense central core with
a positive charge.
 Ernest Rutherford then developed the nuclear model of
5 an atom, in which all the positive charges are in the
nucleus while the electrons are orbiting around it.

James Chadwick proved the existence of neutrons which

are neutral particles in the nucleus of the atom by
6 bombarding alpha particles on beryllium. His discovery of
neutrons solved the mystery on how protons clump
themselves together in the nucleus.
WRITE T IF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS TRUE. OTHERWISE,
WRITE F.
1. Dalton proposed the idea that the atom is a uniform positively
charged sphere embedded with electrons.
2. Some of the particles passed through in the gold foil experiment
of Rutherford, but some were deflected and bounced back.
3. Rutherford’s nuclear model shows that the nucleus is located at
the center of the atom and that it contains the protons and
neutrons.