Atomic theory

Early Development
Near the end of the 18th century, two laws about chemical reactions emerged without referring to the notion of an atomic theory. The first was the law of conservation of mass, formulated by Antoine Lavoisier in 1789, which states that the total mass in a chemical reaction remains constant (that is, the reactants have the same mass as the [2] products). The second was the law of definite proportions. First proven by the French chemist Joseph Louis Proust [3] in 1799, this law states that if a compound is broken down into its constituent elements, then the masses of the constituents will always have the same proportions, regardless of the quantity or source of the original substance. John Dalton studied and expanded upon this previous work and developed the law of multiple proportions: if two elements came together to form more than one compound, then the ratios of the masses of the second element which combine with a fixed mass of the first element will be ratios of small integers. For instance, Proust had studied tin oxides and found that their masses were either 88.1% tin and 11.9% oxygen or 78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen (these were tin(II) oxide and tin dioxide respectively). Dalton noted from these percentages that 100g of tin will combine either with 13.5g or 27g of oxygen; 13.5 and 27 form a ratio of 1:2. Dalton found an atomic theory of matter could elegantly explain this common pattern in chemistry - in the case of Proust's tin oxides, one tin atom will [4] combine with either one or two oxygen atoms. Dalton also believed atomic theory could explain why water absorbed different gases in different proportions: for [5] example, he found that water absorbed carbon dioxide far better than it absorbed nitrogen. Dalton hypothesized this was due to the differences in mass and complexity of the gases' respective particles. Indeed, carbon dioxide molecules (CO2) are heavier and larger than nitrogen molecules (N2). Dalton proposed that each chemical element is composed of atoms of a single, unique type, and though they cannot be altered or destroyed by chemical means, they can combine to form more complex structures (chemical compounds). This marked the first truly scientific theory of the atom, since Dalton reached his conclusions by experimentation and examination of the results in an empirical fashion.

Various atoms and molecules as depicted in John Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808). In 1803 Dalton orally presented his first list of relative atomic weights for a number of substances. This paper was [5] published in 1805, but he did not discuss there exactly how he obtained these figures. The method was first revealed in 1807 by his acquaintance Thomas Thomson, in the third edition of Thomson's textbook, A System of Chemistry. Finally, Dalton published a full account in his own textbook, A New System of Chemical Philosophy, 1808 and 1810. Dalton estimated the atomic weights according to the mass ratios in which they combined, with the hydrogen atom taken as unity. However, Dalton did not conceive that with some elements atoms exist in molecules e.g. pure oxygen exists as O2. He also mistakenly believed that the simplest compound between any two elements is always [6] one atom of each (so he thought water was HO, not H2O). This, in addition to the crudity of his equipment, flawed his results. For instance, in 1803 he believed that oxygen atoms were 5.5 times heavier than hydrogen atoms, because in water he measured 5.5 grams of oxygen for every 1 gram of hydrogen and believed the formula for water was HO. Adopting better data, in 1806 he concluded that the atomic weight of oxygen must actually be 7 rather than 5.5, and he retained this weight for the rest of his life. Others at this time had already concluded that the oxygen atom must weigh 8 relative to hydrogen equals 1, if one assumes Dalton's formula for the water molecule (HO), or 16 if one [7] assumes the modern water formula. The flaw in Dalton's theory was corrected in principle in 1811 by Amedeo Avogadro. Avogadro had proposed that equal volumes of any two gases, at equal temperature and pressure, contain equal numbers of molecules (in other [8] words, the mass of a gas's particles does not affect its volume). Avogadro's law allowed him to deduce the diatomic nature of numerous gases by studying the volumes at which they reacted. For instance: since two liters of hydrogen will react with just one liter of oxygen to produce two liters of water vapor (at constant pressure and temperature), it meant a single oxygen molecule splits in two in order to form two particles of water. Thus, Avogadro was able to offer more accurate estimates of the atomic mass of oxygen and various other elements, and made a clear distinction

between molecules and atoms. However, in the first half of the nineteenth century most chemists viewed Avogadro's ideas as excessively hypothetical, and had theoretical reasons for doubting the truth of Avogadro's ideas. These ideas were widely accepted in the chemical community only after about 1860.

RUTHERFORDS ALPHA SCATTERING EXPERIMENT

The results of this experiment were so astounding that they made Rutherford say, "It was quite the most incredible event that ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you had fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you." If you wanted to know more about a dark room that you were unable to go into, you might be able to get an idea of its size and contents by throwing balls into the room and considering their behaviour (the sort of task you might get in an Adventure game made for the computer). you would be able to tell where obstacles were and roughly the size of the room. Physicists do the same kind of thing when 'lookling at' tiny objects such as atoms. In 1911 Rutherford wanted to find out more about the structure of the atom so he set two of his research students (Geiger and Marsden) the task of bombarding gold atoms with alpha particles, gathering data as to what happened to the 'missiles' and making deductions about the atom's structure from that data. In those days they did not have particle accelerators providing a ready supply of protons or neutrons so they had to use something that could be used as a natural probe - alpha particles were ideal. The Use of Alpha Particles

Alpha particles are small (only two protons and two neutrons) and yet have enough mass (4u) to be a suitable missile (lots of momentum!). They are produced naturally by radioactive nuclides that are alpha emitters (small proton rich nuclei) and so a steady supply was easy to obtain. Their properties had been under investigation for about a decade (much of it done by Rutherford!) and he had been doing research into the fact that if he used high energy alpha particles they were able to penetrate thin metal foil sheets when he came up with the idea of that they would be ideal as a probe to atomic structure. He was expecting tiny changes in trajectory as they met up with atomic substructure. Remember he thought of the 'atom' as the 'plum pudding' structure - he hadn't discovered the one you know about yet! The alpha source emits alpha particles randomly in all directions, but to study how their path is altered we have to O be sure that they only hit the foil at a fixed angle (90 ).To achieve this we must use a collimator. This absorbs all of the alpha particles except those travelling in one direction - unless they are travelling parallel to the sides of the outlet of the collimator they will impact on the side and be absorbed - so only those travelling parallel to each other and in one direction get through!

The Foil

A single atom is too small to look at. It would be impossible to get 'just one' to examine. Therefore Rutherford decided to look at a metal foil consisting of many atoms in a very thin sheet. Gold was the ideal choice as gold can be rolled out into very fine gold leaf sheets. These very fine sheets are only a few atoms deep. Therefore gold foil would produce results of interactions that could be best related to the interaction between a single alpha and a single nucleus If the foil was too thick the alpha particles would just be absorbed. Remember that he expected most of them to

just go through but he knew that they could be absorbed by thicker foils and even by a few centimetres of air. The Evacuated Chamber

It had to be performed in a vacuum because the air would absorb the alpha particles before they hit the foil or before they got to the screen!

The Zinc Sulphide Screen

Zinc sulphide fluoresces (gives out a photon of visible light) when it is hit by a charged particle. Covering the microscope lens with ZnS allowed the viewer to 'see' where the alpha particles hit (or at least count their impacts).

Measuring the Angle

In order to find out how much the alpha particles had been deflected from their path the microscope arm was connected to a turntable. It could rotate around the vacuum filled drum and how far it had rotated could be read off a vernier scale etched onto the turntable. When the angle was zero (the straight through position) the number of scintillations per minute on the screen would be high. As the angle increased the number of scintillations per minute would be much lower. o The really surprising result was the number than were 'backscattered' - that made angles of greater than 90 with their original trajectory. Rutherford was amazed, he said, 'It was quite the most incredible event that has happened to me in my life! It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15" shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you!' Less than 1 in 8,000 alpha particles back scattered. This gives an indication of the tedious work involved in taking a checking the results! They would have to be repeated many times to be sure they were not due to anomalies! Would you have been tempted to discount totally inexplicable results and give your professor a set of results he expected? Or would you, like Geiger and Marsden, repeat and repeat and report the strange findings to Rutherford so that a whole new model of the atom could be developed? It is the careful (and honest!) investigation into anomalies that often lead to new theories. Nowadays this could be done with data logging and computer analysis. In the early 1900s scientists had to do a lot of painstaking measurements!

Top View of Equipment

Side View of Equipment The Conclusion When Rutherford mathematically investigated the results he proposed a model that explained the results that Geiger and Marsden obtained.

The fact that the vast majority of the alpha particles got straight through led Rutherford to propose that the atom was composed primarily of empty space. The fact that backscattering occurred in 1 in 8000 alpha particles indicated that there was a:

o o o

small (that was why so few were affected) massive (meaning containing lots of mass - he knew the electrons had very little mass and the fact that all of the positive charges were concentrated into a small area meant that the mass was concentrated there too) positively charged (because it repelled the alpha particles) nucleus in the centre of the atom (neutrons had not been discovered at that time - so he made no mention of them!).

So his picture was one of the atom being like the solar system - the sun being the nucleus (taking a very small proportion of the volume of the solar system but being the vast bulk of the mass in it!) and the electrons being like the planets orbiting the 'sun'. This model was later amended by Bohr (to take into account a couple of points that Rutherford's atom did not fully explain like the motion of the electrons and the orbital paths that could explain what the Chemists understood of electron behaviour in bonding) to make the model of the atom that you are taught at GCSE but it was still a magnificent advance to our understanding of atomic structure.

The observations made in 1911 by Geiger and Masden carrying out the experiment for Rutherford were a fatal blow to the Plum Pudding model. J.J. Thomson had put forward this picture of what an atom was like in 1906 and it was accepted scientific theory in 1911. The central assumption of the Plum Pudding model was that the positive charge was uniformly distributed over the atomic volume - like the dough of a Christmas (plum)

pudding. The electrons were embedded in it like the currants in the pudding mixture. For a helium nucleus to be deflected through 180 degrees as had been observed in this important experiment was only possible if the positive charge of the gold nucleus was concentrated in a tiny central area. The repulsion from such concentrated charge could explain why the positive helium nucleus was back scattered. Backscattering from the 'smeared out' charge couldn't do that! It took Rutherford a number of months before he finally decided that the only way his results made sense was if the charge was concentrated in a nucleus - he was the first to put forward such an idea... and let's face it, the idea seemed counterintuitive - who would think the atom was mainly empty space? He had to be sure his calculations were correct before he put his idea forward to the scientific community. Once he presented his ideas and explained how he got the results that led to them scientists all over the world repeated his experiment to verify the results and checked his mathematics to see whether his theories were sound. We now know that Rutherford was right, but this was a revolutionary suggestion at the time and is a good example of how precise, repeatable experimentation can lead to us changing our thinking about how the Universe works - and lead to better understanding. If Geiger and Marsden had 'tinkered with' their results to make them do what 'made sense' and was expected we would have not made such a rapid advance in nuclear knowledge! Think of that the next time you are tempted to fabricate a repeat set of readings in class - or to get rid of an anomaly. The 1 in 8000 backscatter could have been seen as an anomaly, but Geiger and Marsden checked the 'anomalies' out - several times to verify they were nothing of the kind. If they had ignored them Rutherford would have been presented with a set of result that showed just what he expected to see... they would have been in accordance with current scientific thinking.

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 hypothetical mathematical [9] model to describe it. This model was validated experimentally in 1908 by French physicist Jean Perrin, thus providing additional.

First steps toward a quantum physical model of the atom

The planetary model of the atom had two significant shortcomings. The first is that, unlike planets orbiting a sun, electrons are charged particles. An accelerating electric charge is known to emit electromagnetic waves according to the Larmor formula in classical electromagnetism; an orbiting charge should steadily lose energy and spiral toward the nucleus, colliding with it in a small fraction of a second. The second problem was that the planetary model could not explain the highly peaked emission and absorption spectra of atoms that were observed The Bohr model of the atomQuantum theory revolutionized physics at the beginning of the 20th century, when Max Planck and Albert Einstein postulated that light energy is emitted or absorbed in discrete amounts known as quanta (singular, quantum). In 1913, Niels Bohr incorporated this idea into his Bohr model of the atom, in which an electron could only orbit the nucleus in particular circular orbits with fixed angular momentum and energy, its distance from the [19] nucleus (i.e., their radii) being proportional to its energy. Under this model an electron could not spiral into the nucleus because it could not lose energy in a continuous manner; instead, it could only make instantaneous [19] "quantum leaps" between the fixed energy levels. When this occurred, light was emitted or absorbed at a [19] frequency proportional to the change in energy (hence the absorption and emission of light in discrete spectra). Bohr's model was not perfect. It could only predict the spectral lines of hydrogen; it couldn't predict those of multielectron atoms. Worse still, as spectrographic technology improved, additional spectral lines in hydrogen were observed which Bohr's model couldn't explain. In 1916, Arnold Sommerfeld added elliptical orbits to the Bohr model to explain the extra emission lines, but this made the model very difficult to use, and it still couldn't explain more complex atoms.

Discovery of isotopes

While experimenting with the products of radioactive decay, in 1913 radiochemist Frederick Soddy discovered that [20] there appeared to be more than one element at each position on the periodic table. The term isotope was coined by Margaret Todd as a suitable name for these elements. That same year, J.J. Thomson conducted an experiment in which he channeled a stream of neon ions through magnetic and electric fields, striking a photographic plate at the other end. He observed two glowing patches on the plate, which suggested two different deflection trajectories. Thomson concluded this was because some of the neon [21] ions had a different mass. The nature of this differing mass would later be explained by the discovery of neutrons in 1932.

Discovery of nuclear particles

In 1917 Rutherford bombarded nitrogen gas with alpha particles and observed hydrogen nuclei being emitted from the gas (Rutherford recognized these, because he had previously obtained them bombarding hydrogen with alpha particles, and observing hydrogen nuclei in the products). Rutherford concluded that the hydrogen nuclei emerged [22] from the nuclei of the nitrogen atoms themselves (in effect, he had split a nitrogen). From his own work and the work of his students Bohr and Henry Moseley, Rutherford knew that the positive charge of any atom could always be equated to that of an integer number of hydrogen nuclei. This, coupled with the atomic mass of many elements being roughly equivalent to an integer number of hydrogen atoms - then assumed to be the lightest particles- led him to conclude that hydrogen nuclei were singular particles and a basic constituent of all atomic nuclei. He named such particles protons. Further experimentation by Rutherford found that the nuclear mass of most atoms exceeded that of the protons it possessed; he speculated that this surplus mass was composed of hitherto unknown neutrally charged particles, which were tentatively dubbed "neutrons". In 1928, Walter Bothe observed that beryllium emitted a highly penetrating, electrically neutral radiation when bombarded with alpha particles. It was later discovered that this radiation could knock hydrogen atoms out of paraffin wax. Initially it was thought to be high-energy gamma radiation, since gamma radiation had a similar effect on electrons in metals, but James Chadwick found that the ionization effect was too strong for it to be due to electromagnetic radiation, so long as energy and momentum were conserved in the interaction. In 1932, Chadwick exposed various elements, such as hydrogen and nitrogen, to the mysterious "beryllium radiation", and by measuring the energies of the recoiling charged particles, he deduced that the radiation was actually composed of electrically neutral particles which could not be massless like the gamma ray, but instead were required to have a mass similar to [23] that of a proton. Chadwick now claimed these particles as Rutherford's neutrons. For his discovery of the neutron, Chadwick received the Nobel Prize in 1935.

Quantum physical models of the atom

The five filled atomic orbitals of a neon atom separated and arranged in order of increasing energy from left to right, with the last three orbitals being equal in energy. Each orbital holds up to two electrons, which most probably exist in the zones represented by the colored bubbles. Each electron is equally present in both orbital zones, shown here by color only to highlight the different wave phase. In 1924, Louis de Broglie proposed that all moving particles particularly subatomic particles such as electrons exhibit a degree of wave-like behavior. Erwin Schrdinger, fascinated by this idea, explored whether or not the movement of an electron in an atom could be better explained as a wave rather than as a particle. Schrdinger's [24] equation, published in 1926, describes an electron as a wavefunction instead of as a point particle. This approach elegantly predicted many of the spectral phenomena that Bohr's model failed to explain. Although this concept was [25] mathematically convenient, it was difficult to visualize, and faced opposition. One of its critics, Max Born, proposed instead that Schrdinger's wavefunction described not the electron but rather all its possible states, and thus could be [26] used to calculate the probability of finding an electron at any given location around the nucleus. This reconciled the two opposing theories of particle versus wave electrons and the idea of wave-particle duality was introduced. This theory stated that the electron may exhibit the properties of both a wave and a particle. For example, it can be [27] refracted like a wave, and has mass like a particle. A consequence of describing electrons as waveforms is that it is mathematically impossible to simultaneously derive the position and momentum of an electron; this became known as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle after the [28] theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg, who first described it and published it in 1927. This invalidated Bohr's

model, with its neat, clearly defined circular orbits. The modern model of the atom describes the positions of electrons in an atom in terms of probabilities. An electron can potentially be found at any distance from the nucleus, but, depending on its energy level, exists more frequently in certain regions around the nucleus than others; this pattern is referred to as its atomic orbital. The orbitals come in a variety of shapes-sphere, dumbbell, torus, etc.-with the [29] nucleus in the middle. ATOMS (A short history of the knowledge of the atom)

atom n. A unit of matter, the smallest unit of an element, consisting of a dense, central, positively charged nucleus surrounded by a system of electrons, equal in number to the number of nuclear protons, the entire structure having an approximate diameter of 10-8 centimeter and characteristically remaining undivided in chemical reactions except for limited removal, transfer, or exchange of certain electrons.

Actually, the thought about electricity came before atoms. In about it with fur, attracts bits of hair and feathers and other light objects600 B.C. Thales of Miletus discovered that a piece of amber, after rubbing. He suggested that this mysterious force came from the amber. Thales, however, did not connect this force with any atomic particle. Not until around 460 B.C., did a Greek philosopher, Democritus, develop the idea of atoms. He asked this question: If you break a piece of matter in half, and then break it in half again, how many breaks will you have to make before you can break it no further? Democritus thought that it ended at some point, a smallest possible bit of matter. He called basic matter particles, atoms. Unfortunately, the atomic ideas of Democritus had no lasting effects on other Greek philosophers, including Aristotle. In fact, Aristotle dismissed the atomic idea as worthless. People considered Aristotle's opinions very important and if Aristotle thought the atomic idea had no merit, then most other people thought the same also. (Primates have great mimicking ability.) For more than 2000 years nobody did anything to continue the explorations that the Greeks had started into the nature of matter. Not until the early 1800's did people begin again to question the structure of matter. In the 1800's an English chemist, John Dalton performed experiments with various chemicals that showed that matter, indeed, seem to consist of elementary lumpy particles (atoms). Although he did not know about their structure, he knew that the evidence pointed to something fundamental.

Thomsons 'Rasin in the Pudding' model of the atom

In 1897, the English physicist J.J. Thomson discovered the electron and proposed a model for the structure of the atom. Thomson knew that electrons had a negative charge and thought that matter must have a positive charge. His model looked like raisins stuck on the surface of a lump of pudding.

In 1900 Max Planck, a professor of theoretical physics in Berlin showed that when you vibrate atoms strong enough, such as when you heat an object until it glows, you can measure the energy only in discrete units. He called these energy packets, quanta. Physicists at the time thought that light consisted of waves but, according to Albert Einstein, the quanta behaved like discrete particles. Physicists call Einstein's discrete light particle, a "photon*."

Photoelectric effect

Atoms not only emit photons, but they can also absorb them. In 1905, Albert Einstein wrote a ground-breaking paper that explained that light absorption can release electrons from atoms, a phenomenon called the "photoelectric effect." Einstein received his only Nobel Prize for physics in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect. A heated controversy occured for many years on deciding whether light consisted of waves or particles. The evidence appeared strong for both cases. Later, physicists showed that light appears as either wave-like or particlelike (but never both at the same time) depending on the experimental setup.

Other particles got discovered around this time called alpha rays. These particles had a positive charge and physicists thought that they consisted of the positive parts of the Thompson atom (now known as the nucleus of atoms). In 1911 Ernest Rutherford thought it would prove interesting to bombard atoms with these alpha rays, figuring that this experiment could investigate the inside of the atom (sort of like a probe). He used Radium as the source of the alpha particles and shinned them onto the atoms in gold foil. Behind the foil sat a fluorescent screen for which he could observe the alpha particles impact.

The results of the experiments came unexpected. Most of the alpha particles went smoothly through the foil. Only an occasional alpha veered sharply from its original path, sometimes bouncing straight back from the foil! Rutherford reasoned that they must get scattered by tiny bits of positively charged matter. Most of the space around these positive centers had nothing in them. He thought that the electrons must exist somewhere within this empty space. Rutherford thought that the negative electrons orbited a positive center in a manner like the solar system where the planets orbit the sun.

Rutherford's atom Rutherford knew that atoms consist of a compact positively charged nucleus, around which circulate negative electrons at a relatively large distance. The nucleus occupies less than one thousand million millionth (10 ) of the atomic volume, but contains almost all of the atom's mass. If an atom had the size of the earth, the nucleus would have the size of a football stadium.

Not until 1919 did Rutherford finally identify the particles of the nucleus as discrete positive charges of matter. Using alpha particles as bullets, Rutherford knocked hydrogen nuclei out of atoms of six elements: boron, fluorine, sodium, aluminum, phosphorus, an nitrogen. He named them protons, from the Greek for 'first', for they consisted of the first identified building blocks of the nuclei of all elements. He found the protons mass at 1,836 times as great as the mass of the electron.

But there appeared something terribly wrong with Rutherford's model of the atom. The theory of electricity and magnetism predicted that opposite charges attract each other and the electrons should gradually lose energy and spiral inward. Moreover, physicists reasoned that the atoms should give off a rainbow of colors as they do so. But no experiment could verify this rainbow. In 1912 a Danish physicist, Niels Bohr came up with a theory that said the electrons do not spiral into the nucleus and came up with some rules for what does happen. (This began a new approach to science because for the first time rules had to fit the observation regardless of how they conflicted with the theories of the time.) Bohr said, "Here's some rules that seem impossible, but they describe the way atoms operate, so let's pretend they're correct and use them." Bohr came up with two rules which agreed with experiment: RULE 1: Electrons can orbit only at certain allowed distances from the nucleus.

RULE 2: Atoms radiate energy when an electron jumps from a higher-energy orbit to a lower-energy orbit. Also, an atom absorbs energy when an electron gets boosted from a low-energy orbit to a high-energy orbit.

Bohr's atom for Hydrogen

The electron can exist in only one of the orbits. (The diagram shows only five orbits, but any number of orbits can theoretically exist.)

Light (photons) emit whenever an electron jumps from one orbit to another. The jumps seem to happen instantaneously without moving through a trajectory. The examples above show only two possibilities from Rule 2. By the 1920s, further experiments showed that Bohr's model of the atom had some troubles. Bohr's atom seemed too simple to describe the heavier elements. In fact it only worked roughly in these cases. The spectral lines did not appear correct when a strong magnetic field influenced the atoms.

Bohr- Sommerfeld model of the atom

Bohr and a German physicist, Arnold Sommerfeld expanded the original Bohr model to explain these variations. According to the Bohr-Sommerfeld model, not only do electrons travel in certain orbits but the orbits have different shapes and the orbits could tilt in the presence of a magnetic field. Orbits can appear circular or elliptical, and they can even swing back and forth through the nucleus in a straight line.

The orbit shapes and various angles to the magnetic field could only have certain shapes, similar to an electron in a certain orbit. As an example, the fourth orbit in a hydrogen atom can have only three possible shapes and seven possible traits. These added states allowed more possibilities for different spectral lines to appear. This brought the model of the atom into closer agreement with experimental data. The conditions of the state of the orbit got assigned quantum numbers. The three states discussed so far consist of: orbit number (n), orbit shape (l) and orbit tilt (m).

In 1924 an Austrian physicist, Wolfgang Pauli predicted that an electron should spin (kind of like a top) while it orbits around the nucleus. The electron can spin in either of two direction. This spin consisted of a fourth quantum number: electron spin (s).

Pauli's Exclusion principle Pauli gave a rule governing the behavior of electrons within the atom that agreed with experiment. If an electron has a certain set of quantum numbers, then no other electron in that atom can have the same set of quantum numbers. Physicists call this "Pauli's exclusion principle." It provides an important principle to this day and has even outlived the Bohr-Sommerfeld model that Pauli designed it for. In 1924 a Frenchman named Louis de Broglie thought about particles of matter. He thought that if light can exist as both particles and waves, why couldn't atom particles also behave like waves? In a few equations derived from Einstein's famous equation, (E=mc2) he showed what matter waves would behave like if they existed at all. (Experiments later proved him correct.)

In 1926 the Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrdinger had an interesting idea: Why not go all the way with particle waves and try to form a model of the atom on that basis? His theory worked kind of like harmonic theory for a violin string except that the vibrations traveled in circles. The world of the atom, indeed, began to appear very strange. It proved difficult to form an accurate picture of an atom because nothing in our world really compares with it. Schrdinger's wave mechanics did not question the makeup of the waves but he had to call it something so he gave it a symbol:

The "psi" symbol of Schrdinger's wave came from the Greek lettering system. In 1926, a German physicist, Max Born had an idea about 'psi'. Born thought they resembled waves of chance. These ripples moved along waves of chance, made up of places where particles may occur and places where no particles occured. The waves of chance ripple around in circles when the particle appears like an electron in an atomic orbit, and they ripple back and forth when the electron orbit goes straight through the nucleus, and they ripple along in straight lines when a free particle moves through interatomic space. You can think of them as waves when traveling through space and as particles whenever they travel in circles. However, they cannot exist as both waves and particles at the same time.

Just before Schrdinger proposed his theory, a German physicist Werner Heisenberg, in 1925, had a theory of his own called matrix mechanics which also explained the behavior of atoms. The two theories seemed to have an entirely different sets of assumptions yet they both worked. Heisenberg based his theory on mathematical quantities called matrices that fit with the conception of electrons as particles whereas Schrdinger based his theory on waves. Actually, the results of both theories appeared mathematically the same. In 1927 Heisenberg formulated an idea, which agreed with tests, that no experiment can measure the position and momentum of a quantum particle simultaneously. Scientists call this the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle." This implies that as one measures the certainty of the position of a particle, the uncertainty in the momentum gets correspondingly larger. Or, with an accurate momentum measurement, the knowledge about the particle's position gets correspondingly less.

The visual concept of the atom now appeared as an electron "cloud" which surrounds a nucleus. The cloud consists of a probability distribution map which determines the most probable location of an electron. For example, if one could take a snap-shot of the location of the electron at different times and then superimpose all of the shots into one photo, then it might look something like the view at the top. Note: Just as no map can equal a territory, no concept of an atom can possibly equal its nature. These models of the atom simply served as a way of thinking about them, albeit they contained limitations (all models do).

Although the mathematical concept of the atom got better, the visual concept of the atom got worse. Regardless, even simplistic visual models can still prove useful. Chemists usually describe the atom as a simple solar system model similar to Bohr's model but without the different orbit shapes. The important emphasis for chemistry attemps to show the groupings of electrons in orbital shells. (The example above shows the first eleven elements.)

Chemical behavior of the elements form together to create molecules. Molecules may share electrons as the hydrogen and water molecules above illustrates. (Atoms which share electrons have the name "ions.") The outer electron shell of an atom actually does the sharing and bonding of the atoms. This in turn allows chemists to describe the interactions of chemistry. Even though the orbit model of the atom does not provide an accurate model, it works well for describing chemistry.

A helium atom with two electrons orbiting a nucleon made of two protons and two neutrons A mystery of the nature of the nucleus remained unsolved. The nucleus contains most of the atom's mass as well as the positive charge. The protons supposedly accounted for this mass. However, a nucleus with twice the charge of another should have twice the number of protons and twice the mass. But this did not prove correct. Rutherford speculated in 1920 that there existed electrically neutral particles with the protons that make up the missing mass but no one accepted his idea at the time. Not until 1932 did the English physicist James Chadwick finally discover the neutron. He found it to measure slightly heavier than the proton with a mass of 1840 electrons and with no charge (neutral). The proton-neutron together, received the name, "nucleon."

Isotopes of Hydrogen

Although scientists knew that atoms of a particular element have the same number of protons, they discovered that some of these atoms have slightly different masses. They concluded that the variations in mass result, more or less, from the number of neutrons in the nucleus of the atom. Atoms of an element having the same atomic number but different atomic masses get called "isotopes" of that element.

Antimatter

In 1928, Paul Dirac produced equations which predicted an unthinkable thing at the time- a positive charged electron. He did not accept his own theory at the time. In 1932 in experiments with cosmic rays, Carl Anderson discovered the anti-electron, which proved Dirac's equations. Physicists call it the positron. For each variety of matter there should exist a corresponding 'opposite' or antimatter. Physicists now know that antimatter exists. However, because matter and antimatter annihilates whenever they come in contact, it does not stay around for very long. (By the way, an unsolved problem remains as to why the universe consists of mostly regular matter and not an equal amount of antimatter. Physicsts call this "symmetry breaking".) There exists not only anti-electrons but in 1955, physicists found the anti-proton, and later the anti-neutron. This allows the existence for anti-atoms, a true form of antimatter. When scientists found out about the atomic nucleus, they questioned why the positively charged protons should remain so close without repelling. The scientists realized that there must exist new forces at work and the secrets must lie within the nucleus. They knew that the force which holds the protons together must occur much stronger than the electromagnetic force and that the force must act over very small distances (otherwise they would have noticed this force in interactions between the nucleus and the outer electrons). In 1932, Werner Heisenberg concluded that charged particles bounce photons of light back and forth between them. This exchange of photons provides a way for the electromagnetic forces to act between the particles. The theory says that a proton shoots a photon at the electron, and the electron shoots a photon back at the proton. These photon exchanges go on all the time, very rapidly. However, because no one can see them (measure them), Heisenberg called these exchange particles, virtual photons. (Virtual meaning, not exactly 'real'.) In 1935 a Japanese physicist, Hideki Yukawa, suggested that exchange forces might also describe the strong force between nucleons. However, virtual photons did not have enough strength for this force, so he thought that there must exist a new kind of virtual particle. Yukawa used Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to explain that a virtual particle could exist for an extremely small fraction of a second. Since its time of existence occurs nearly exactly, there would occur a great uncertainty in the energy of the virtual particle. This uncertainty allowed the particles to exist very strongly only at certain times and the particles could slip in and out of existence. He also calculated that these particles should be about 250 times as heavy as an electron. Later, in 1947, the physicist Cecil F. Powell detected this particle and called it the "pion." Although the pions describe the transmitters of the strong force, they do not get classed with the other forcetransmitting particles, such as the photon or the W and Z particles. Pions now appear not as elementary particles but rather composites made up of "quarks." The strong force gets transmitted by the pions only at relatively larger nuclear levels. Physicists presently think that all the forces in the universe get carried by some kind of quantum particle. This theory started in 1928 with Paul Dirac stating that photons transmit the electromagnetic force. The theory called "quantum electrodynamics," or QED, developed from work by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Sin-Itiro in the late 1940s. The four known forces and their particles appear as follows:

PARTICLE Photon W+, W-, Z Gluon (8 types) Gravition

NATURE AND ROLE

Carrier of the electromagnetic force (magnetisim, light, heat, EMR, electricity) Carrier of the weak force (radioactivity) Carriers of the strong force (holds the quarks) Carrier of the gravitational force (undetected so far at the time of this writing)

From 1947 until the end of the 1950's, physicists discovered many more new particles (dozens of them). The various types of particles needed a new theory to explain their strange properties.

In 1960, Murray Gell-Mann and Yuval Ne'man independently proposed a method for classifying all the particles then known. The method became known as the Eightfold Way. What the periodic table did for the elements, the Eightfold Way did for the particles. In 1964 Gell-Mann went further and proposed the existence of a new level of elementary particles and called them "quarks" (the spelling derives from a phrase in James Joyce book, Finnegans Wake, "Three quarks for Muster Mark." Gell-Mann thought there existed at least three types of quarks. They have the names, "up," "down," and "strange." From 1974 thru 1984 the theory predicted three more quarks called "charm," "bottom" (or beauty), and "top" (or truth). And each quark has their corresponding anti-quark.

The theory of the quark explains the existence of several particles including the nucleus of the atom. In fact the proton and neutron each get made up of three quarks and the force which holds the quarks together come from particles called "gluons." Quarks do not exist by themselves but only in pairs (mesons) or triplets (baryons). The following charts list the various particle groupings: LEPTONS (spin 1/2, mass < mesons) NAME Electron Positron Muon & 105.6 MeV Antimuon Tau & Antitau Muon neutrino & Antineutrino Tau neutrino & Antineutrino 2 x 10-6 s MASS 0.5511 MeV 0.5511 MeV LIEFTIME Stable Stable CHARGE -1 +1 SPIN 1/2 1/2

-1 +1 0 0 0 0 0 0

1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2

1.78 GeV < 50 eV 0 (?) <.05 MeV 0 (?) <70 MeV

291 x 10-15s

Stable (?)

Stable (?)

QUARKS (particles with 1/3 or 2/3 charge) NAME MASS LIFETIME CHARGE SPIN

Up & 1.5-4.5 MeV Antiup Down & 5.0-8.5 MeV Antidown Strange & ~100 MeV Antistrange Charm & ~1.2 GeV Anticharm Botton & ~4.2 GeV Antibottom Top & 175 GeV Antitop Variable * Variable * Variable * Variable * Variable * Stable *

+2/3 -2/3 -1/3 +1/3 -1/3 +1/3 +2/3 -2/3 -1/3 +1/3 +2/3 -2/3

1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2

* As quarks occur only in pairs or triplets, their lifetimes vary BOSONS (force carrying particles) NAME Photon W-plus Weak force W-minus Z Gluon Graviton* Weak force Strong force Gravity 91.2 GeV 0 0 10-25 s Stable Stable 80.4 GeV 10-25 s NATURE Electromagnetic MASS 0 LIFETIME Stable CHARGE 0 +1 -1 0 0 0 SPIN 1 1 1 1 1 2

* Undetected at the time of this writing MESONS (masses between the electron and proton) NAME Pion (pi-zero) Pion (pi-plus) 140 MeV Pion (pi-minus) Kaon (K-zero) Kaon (K-plus) 494 MeV Kaon (K-minus) J/PSI D (D-zero) 1.87 GeV D (D-plus) UPSILON 9.46 GeV 3.1 GeV 10-20 s 10-12 s 4 x 10-13 s 10-20 s 0 0 +1 0 1 0 1 1.2 x 10-8 s 0 0 498 MeV 10-10 s 5 x 10-8 s 2.6 x 10-8 s MASS 135 MeV LIFETIME 0.8 x 10-16 s CHARGE 0 +1 -1 SPIN 0 0 0

BARYONS NAME Proton Antiproton Neutron Antineutron Lambda Antilambda Sigma (sigma +) Sigma (sigma - ) Sigma (sigma 0 ) XI (xi-minus) XI (xi-zero) Omega minus Charmed lambda MASS 938.3 MeV 938.3 MeV 939.6 MeV 939.6 MeV 1.115 GeV 1.115 GeV LIFETIME Stable (?) Stable (?) Stable in nuclei 15 Min. free CHARGE +1 -1 0 0 0 0 SPIN 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2

2.6 x 10-10 s

1.189 GeV 1.197 GeV 1.192 GeV

0.8 x 10-10 s 1.5 x 10-10 s 6 x 10-20 s

+1 -1 0

1/2 1/2 1/2

1.321 GeV 1.315 GeV 1.672 GeV 2.28 GeV

1.6 x 10-10 s 3 x 10-10 s 0.8 x 10-10 s 2 x 10-13 s

-1 0 -1 1

1/2 1/2 3/2 1/2

And this only describes the beginning! From the time of the ancient Greeks until today, the visual concept of the atom has proved elusive and obscure, yet the mathematical concepts have grown stronger. Although nothing has yet proven absolute, humans can now predict the behavior of atoms with great accuracy. But the world of the atom, the quanta of particles, appears so strange that we can no longer visualize what we think and talk about. The particles have a quality of complete random existence and non-existence about them; and yet the methods of quantum electrodynamics (QED), quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and the whole of quanum mechanics provide such precise, useful, and powerful tools, that it encompasses all of the classical physical laws. The predictions of quantum mechanics have verified themselves many times and to a precision of better than one part in a billion. No predictive method has yet come as close. Even the unproven psychics, soothsayers, and prophets can only dream about such powers of prediction. If you delve into the strange world of atoms, you might start going crazy and start speaking to dogs: