History of the Atom

-who were the main characters in the development of the atom

Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, John Dalton, J.J. Thompson, Ernst Rutherford...

- Why were they vital to the development of the atom

-Leucippus- started frenzie; wondered when pieces were at their smallest.

-Democritis- student of Leucippus; thought same way; together developed ideas.

-Epicurus- first to teach theory of atoms in 306 B.C.

-Robert Boyle- showed evidence and logic to the theory of an atom.

-John Dalton- solidified the atomic theory.

-J.J. Thompson- experimented with cathode rays and finalized the name of the electron, corpuscles; drew the raisin pudding model of the atom

-Ernst Rutherford- experimented with radiation and updated Thompson's raising pudding model.

-James Chadwick- Proved that neutrons, neutral particles in the nucleus that made up approximately half the mass of an atom, did exist; Summary of Subatomic Particles

-what made them different if anything

They solidified all of their results and most were the first to find what they found.

- Think about your lessons in history and discuss how the time period that they lived in determined the outcome of their discovery/ or how it influenced those individuals to be the names that we know today (aka did it matter where they grew up or if they had money?)

Due to the like of technology way back when, I'm assured that they were limited to what their experiments could provide. Also, most of the world was in poverty and there were only a few select wealthy families, who were the only one's whose voice was heard in society. This affected who's experiments were known.

- Why do we consider the atomic theory still a theory? What are the new developments- would love for you to share new sources here about what you find

Only part of the theory has been proven, but not all. We now know that atoms are not truly indivisible.

source-your notes.

- Why does it matter that we understand the structure of the atom

so we can better understand the structure and use it to our advantage in creating new stuff.