Atomic Theory Essay
Science has long endeavored to find out the secrets of the universe. From the Greek philosophers like Aristotle to the modern scientists such as Stephen Hawking, many have tried to discover the inner workings of our world. Our basis for both chemistry and physical science is matter. Few things, however, are more important to the scientific study of matter than the atom.
The study of the atom dates back to 400 BCE, when Greek philosophers Leucippus and his pupil Democritus developed the idea of atomos or atomon, meaning an indivisible piece of matter. These pieces of matter moved and existed in a space referred to as a void and believed to be entirely lacking matter. Aristotle, a philosopher coming shortly after the introduction
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In 1803, a scientist by the name of John Dalton developed an idea now known as atomic theory. Dalton, like the old Greek philosophers Democritus and Leucippus, believed that all existing matter was made of a vast quantity of smaller pieces which he called atoms in reference to the ancient Greek atomos. Dalton established the most basic and fundamental ideas for the study of the atom: the atom is indivisible, different elements of atoms exist with different properties, and atoms cannot be created or destroyed …show more content…
This became known as the gold foil experiment. He decided that for the particles to be deflected, the positive area would need to be mostly in the center - he called this the nucleus. This positive area, he posited, was surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Later, in 1919, Rutherford became the first person to transform one element into another, also discovering and naming the proton, now often denoted by p+ in scientific writings. This particle sat in the nucleus. Working alongside Niels Bohr, Rutherford decided that due to both the unaccounted-for mass and need for a stabilizing force in the nucleus, there had to be yet another particle - this was named the neutron, a neutral and uncharged atomic particle later discovered by one of his students, James Chadwick