Democritus Contribution to The Development of

Atomic Model

According to Democritus' atomic theory,

everything is made up of atoms, which are
physically indivisible: atoms are indestructible,
eternal and invisible, small and unable to be
diminished. He posited that atoms occupy space
and differ in size, shape, magnitude, position and
arrangement. In his model, atoms are
homogeneous.
Using this as a basis to the physical world,
Democritus was able to explain all changes in the
world as changes in motion of atoms, or changes
in the way the atoms were packed together. The
theory explained physics and combined
mathematics, since its structure was quantitative
and subject to mathematical laws.
The Democritus theory elaborated further on how
nature behaves. According to the theory, nature

is a highly complex mechanism. When it comes to

qualities such as warmth and taste, atoms differ
only in quantity and the properties of these
qualities are only by convention. According to
Democritus, atoms and the Void are the only
things that actually exist.
In his theory, he explained that by atoms moving
randomly and colliding to form larger bodies was
how the universe began. According to
Democritus, the world always existed, will forever
exist and is filled with atoms moving about
randomly.

John Daltons Contribution to The Development of

Atomic Model

His atomic theory said that elements consisted of

tiny particles called atoms. It states an element is
one of a kind (aka pure) because all atoms of an
element are identical. All the atoms that make up
the element have the same mass. All elements
are different from each other due to differing
masses.
A compound is a pure (one of a kind) substance
due to different elements bonded together. They
are not easily separated from one another.
Compounds have a fixed ratio of atoms. Each
atom has its own characteristic weight, creating a
weight ratio between elements. Also, his theory
said that chemical reactions involve the
rearrangement of combinations of atoms. His
atomic theory stated the general information on
the atom. Everything is made of atoms. All atoms
of different substances have different weights.

J.J Thomsons Contribution to The Development of

Atomic Model

In 1897 the British physicist Joseph John (J. J.)

Thomson (18561940) discovered the electron in
a series of experiments designed to study the
nature of electric discharge in a high-vacuum
cathode-ray tube, an area being investigated by
numerous scientists at the time. Thomson
interpreted the deflection of the rays by
electrically charged plates and magnets as
evidence of bodies much smaller than atoms
that he calculated as having a very large value

for the charge-to-mass ratio. Later he estimated

the value of the charge itself.
In 1904 Thomson suggested a model of the atom
as a sphere of positive matter in which electrons
are positioned by electrostatic forces. His efforts
to estimate the number of electrons in an atom
from measurements of the scattering of light, X,
beta, and gamma rays initiated the research
trajectory along which his student Ernest
Rutherford moved. Thomsons last important
experimental program focused on determining
the nature of positively charged particles. Here
his techniques led to the development of the
mass spectrograph. His assistant, Francis Aston,
developed Thomson's instrument further and with
the improved version was able to discover
isotopesatoms of the same element with
different atomic weightsin a large number of
nonradioactive elements.

Ernest Rutherfords Contribution to The

Development of Atomic Model

By 1911 the components of the atom had been

discovered. The atom consisted of subatomic particles
called protons and electrons. However, it was not clear
how these protons and electrons were arranged within
the atom. J.J. Thomson suggested the"plum pudding"
model. In this model the electrons and protons are
uniformly mixed throughout the atom:
Rutherford tested Thomson's hypothesis by devising his
"gold foil" experiment. Rutherford reasoned that if
Thomson's model was correct then the mass of the
atom was spread out throughout the atom. Then, if he
shot high velocity alpha particles (helium nuclei) at an
atom then there would be very little to deflect the alpha
particles. He decided to test this with a thin film of gold
atoms. As expected, most alpha particles went right
through the gold foil but to his amazement a few alpha
particles rebounded almost directly backwards.
These deflections were not consistent with Thomson's
model. Rutherford was forced to discard the Plum
Pudding model and reasoned that the only way the

alpha particles could be deflected backwards was if

most of the mass in an atom was concentrated in a
nucleus. He thus developed the planetary model of the
atom which put all the protons in the nucleus and the
electrons orbited around the nucleus like planets around
the sun.

Niels Bohrs Contribution to The Development of Atomic

Model

The discoveries of the electron and radioactivity at the

end of the 19th century led to different models for the
structure of the atom. In 1913, Niels Bohr proposed a
theory for the hydrogen atom based on quantum theory

that energy is transferred only in certain well defined

quantities. Electrons should move around the nucleus
but only in prescribed orbits. When jumping from one
orbit to another with lower energy, a light quantum is
emitted. Bohr's theory could explain why atoms emitted
light in fixed wavelengths.

James Chadwicks Contribution to The Development of

Atomic Model

James Chadwick discovered the neutron using evidence

collected by Irene Joliot-Curie, who discovered that
when beryllium was bombarded with positively charged
alpha particles a beam with a high penetrating power
was created. James Chadwick discoverd that this beam
was not deflected by either electric or magnetic fields,
meaning it contained neutral particles- neutrons.
Neutrons were found to have the same mass as protons
which accounted for more of the mass of the atom and
allowed the masses (the known mass of an atom and
the known mass of its particles) to match. The common
understanding of an atom was now a nucleus
containing positively charged protons and neutral
neutrons (making up nearly all of the atom's mass) with
the rest of the atom (most of it- considering the relative
size of the nucleus, which was found to have a raduis
of10000 times less than the atom itself) being space in
which negatively charged electrons (with a mass so
small it is insignificant compared to that of the nucleus)
"orbit" the nucleus on energy levels corresponding to
the amount of energy the electrons hold.