![Helium atom QM](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Helium_atom_QM.svg)
Atomic theory is the
scientific theory
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that has been repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluatio ...
that
matter
In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic partic ...
is composed of particles called
atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
s. Atomic theory traces its origins to an ancient
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
tradition known as
atomism
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atoms ...
. According to this idea, if one were to take a lump of matter and cut it into ever smaller pieces, one would eventually reach a point where the pieces could not be further cut into anything smaller.
Ancient Greek philosophers
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
called these hypothetical ultimate particles of matter ''atomos'', a word which meant "uncut".
In the early 1800s, the scientist
John Dalton
John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into colour blindness, which he had. Colour b ...
noticed that
chemical substance
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...
s seemed to combine and break down into other substances by weight in proportions that suggested that each chemical element is ultimately made up of tiny indivisible particles of consistent weight. Shortly after 1850, certain physicists developed the
kinetic theory of gases
Kinetic (Ancient Greek: κίνησις “kinesis”, movement or to move) may refer to:
* Kinetic theory, describing a gas as particles in random motion
* Kinetic energy, the energy of an object that it possesses due to its motion
Art and enter ...
and of heat, which mathematically modelled the behavior of gases by assuming that they were made of particles. In the early 20th century,
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
and
Jean Perrin
Jean Baptiste Perrin (30 September 1870 – 17 April 1942) was a French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids ( sedimentation equilibrium), verified Albert Einstein’s explanation of this ...
proved that
Brownian motion
Brownian motion, or pedesis (from grc, πήδησις "leaping"), is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium (a liquid or a gas).
This pattern of motion typically consists of random fluctuations in a particle's position insi ...
(the erratic motion of pollen grains in water) is caused by the action of water
molecule
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioch ...
s; this third line of evidence silenced remaining doubts among scientists as to whether atoms and molecules were real. Throughout the nineteenth century, some scientists had cautioned that the evidence for atoms was indirect, and therefore atoms might not actually be real, but only seem to be real.
By the early 20th century, scientists had developed fairly detailed and precise models for the structure of matter, which led to more rigorously-defined classifications for the tiny invisible particles that make up ordinary matter. An ''atom'' is now defined as the basic particle that composes a
chemical element
A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei, including the pure substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler sub ...
. Around the turn of the 20th century, physicists discovered that the particles that chemists called "atoms" are in fact agglomerations of even smaller particles (
''subatomic'' particles), but scientists kept the name out of convention. The term ''
elementary particle
In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. Particles currently thought to be elementary include electrons, the fundamental fermions ( quarks, leptons, an ...
'' is now used to refer to particles that are actually indivisible.
History
Philosophical atomism
The idea that matter is made up of discrete units is a very old idea, appearing in many ancient cultures such as Greece and India. The word "atom" ( grc-gre,
ἄτομος; '), meaning "uncuttable", was coined by the
Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers Leucippus
Leucippus (; el, Λεύκιππος, ''Leúkippos''; fl. 5th century BCE) is a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who has been credited as the first philosopher to develop a theory of atomism.
Leucippus' reputation, even in antiquity, was obscured ...
and his pupil
Democritus
Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...
(460–370 BC).
Democritus taught that atoms were infinite in number, uncreated, and eternal, and that the qualities of an object result from the kind of atoms that compose it.
Democritus's atomism was refined and elaborated by the later Greek philosopher
Epicurus
Epicurus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκουρος ; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy. He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents. Influenced ...
(341–270 BC), and by the Roman Epicurean poet
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
(99–55 BC).
During the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
, atomism was mostly forgotten in western Europe. During the 12th century, it became known again in western Europe through references to it in the newly-rediscovered writings of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
.
The opposing view of matter upheld by Aristotle was that matter was continuous and infinite and could be subdivided without limit.
In the 14th century, the rediscovery of major works describing atomist teachings, including Lucretius's ''
De rerum natura
''De rerum natura'' (; ''On the Nature of Things'') is a first-century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius ( – c. 55 BC) with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7 ...
'' and
Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...
's ''
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal sourc ...
'', led to increased scholarly attention on the subject. Nonetheless, because atomism was associated with the philosophy of
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings by Epi ...
, which contradicted orthodox Christian teachings, belief in atoms was not considered acceptable by most European philosophers.
The French Catholic priest
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much tim ...
(1592–1655) revived Epicurean atomism with modifications, arguing that atoms were created by God and, though extremely numerous, are not infinite. He was the first person who used the term "molecule" to describe aggregation of atoms.
Gassendi's modified theory of atoms was popularized in France by the physician
François Bernier
François Bernier (25 September 162022 September 1688) was a French physician and traveller. He was born in Joué-Etiau in Anjou. He stayed (14 October 165820 February 1670) for around 12 years in India.
His 1684 publication "Nouvel ...
(1620–1688) and in England by the natural philosopher
Walter Charleton
Walter Charleton (2 February 1619 – 24 April 1707) was a natural philosopher and English writer.
According to Jon Parkin, he was "the main conduit for the transmission of Epicurean ideas to England".Jon Parkin, ''Science, Religion and Politics ...
(1619–1707). The chemist
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...
(1627–1691) and the physicist
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
(1642–1727) both defended atomism and, by the end of the 17th century, it had become accepted by portions of the scientific community.
John Dalton
![Dalton John desk](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Dalton_John_desk.jpg)
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
In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as the system's mass can ...
, closely associated with the work of
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and th ...
, which states that the total mass in a chemical reaction remains constant (that is, the reactants have the same mass as the products).
The second was the
law of definite proportions
In chemistry, the law of definite proportions, sometimes called Proust's law, or law of constant composition states that a given
chemical compound always contains its component elements in fixed ratio (by mass) and does not depend on its source an ...
. First established by the French chemist
Joseph Proust
Joseph Louis Proust (26 September 1754 – 5 July 1826) was a French chemist. He was best known for his discovery of the law of definite proportions in 1794, stating that chemical compounds always combine in constant proportions.
Life
Joseph L. ...
in 1797 this law states that if a compound is broken down into its constituent chemical elements, then the masses of the constituents will always have the same proportions by weight, regardless of the quantity or source of the original substance.
John Dalton
John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He is best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, and for his research into colour blindness, which he had. Colour b ...
studied and expanded upon this previous work and defended a new idea, later known as the
law of multiple proportions
In chemistry, the law of multiple proportions states that if two elements 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 always be ratios of small whole ...
: if the same two elements can be combined to form a number of different compounds, then the ratios of the masses of the two elements in their various compounds will be represented by small whole numbers. This is a common pattern in chemical reactions that was observed by Dalton and other chemists at the time.
''Example 1 — tin oxides:'' Dalton identified two oxides of tin. One is a grey powder in which for every 100 parts of tin there is 13.5 parts of oxygen. The other oxide is a white powder in which for every 100 parts of tin there is 27 parts of oxygen. 13.5 and 27 form a ratio of 1:2. These oxides are today known as
tin(II) oxide
Tin(II) oxide (stannous oxide) is a compound with the formula SnO. It is composed of tin and oxygen where tin has the oxidation state of +2. There are two forms, a stable blue-black form and a metastable red form.
Preparation and reactions
Blue ...
(SnO) and
tin(IV) oxide
Tin(IV) oxide, also known as stannic oxide, is the inorganic compound with the formula SnO2. The mineral form of SnO2 is called cassiterite, and this is the main ore of tin. With many other names, this oxide of tin is an important material in tin ...
(SnO
2) respectively.
''Example 2 — iron oxides:'' Dalton identified two oxides of iron. One is a black powder in which for every 100 parts of iron there is about 28 parts of oxygen. The other is a red powder in which for every 100 parts of iron there is 42 parts of oxygen. 28 and 42 form a ratio of 2:3. These oxides are today known as
iron(II) oxide
Iron(II) oxide or ferrous oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula FeO. Its mineral form is known as wüstite. One of several iron oxides, it is a black-colored powder that is sometimes confused with rust, the latter of which consists ...
(better known as wüstite) and
iron(III) oxide
Iron(III) oxide or ferric oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula Fe2O3. It is one of the three main oxides of iron, the other two being iron(II) oxide (FeO), which is rare; and iron(II,III) oxide (Fe3O4), which also occurs naturally ...
(the major constituent of rust). Their formulas are FeO and Fe
2O
3 respectively.
''Example 3 — nitrogen oxides:'' There are three oxides of nitrogen in which for every 140 g of nitrogen, there is 80 g, 160 g, and 320 g of oxygen respectively, which gives a ratio of 1:2:4. These are
nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or nos, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula . At room temperature, it is a colourless non-flammable gas, and has a ...
(N
2O),
nitric oxide
Nitric oxide (nitrogen oxide or nitrogen monoxide) is a colorless gas with the formula . It is one of the principal oxides of nitrogen. Nitric oxide is a free radical: it has an unpaired electron, which is sometimes denoted by a dot in its che ...
(NO), and
nitrogen dioxide
Nitrogen dioxide is a chemical compound with the formula . It is one of several nitrogen oxides. is an intermediate in the industrial synthesis of nitric acid, millions of tons of which are produced each year for use primarily in the producti ...
(NO
2) respectively.
This recurring pattern suggested that chemicals do not react in any arbitrary quantity, but in multiples of some basic indivisible unit of mass.
In his writings, Dalton used the term "atom" to refer to the basic particle of any
chemical substance
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...
, not strictly for
elements as is the practice today. Dalton did not use the word "molecule"; instead, he used the terms "compound atom" and "elementary atom". 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 compound
A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element ...
s). 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.
In 1803 Dalton referred to a list of relative atomic weights for a number of substances in a talk before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on the solubility of various gases, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen, in water. Dalton did not indicate how he obtained the relative weights, but he initially hypothesized that variation in solubility was due to differences in mass and complexity of the gas particles – an idea that he abandoned by the time the paper was finally published in 1805.
[Dalton, John.]
On the Absorption of Gases by Water and Other Liquids
, in ''Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester''. 1803. Retrieved on August 29, 2007. Over the years, several historians have attributed the development of Dalton’s atomic theory to his study of gaseous solubility, but a recent study of his laboratory notebook entries concludes he developed the chemical atomic theory in 1803 to reconcile Cavendish’s and Lavoisier’s analytical data on the composition of nitric acid, not to explain the solubility of gases in water.
Thomas Thomson Thomas Thomson may refer to:
* Tom Thomson (1877–1917), Canadian painter
* Thomas Thomson (apothecary) (died 1572), Scottish apothecary
* Thomas Thomson (advocate) (1768–1852), Scottish lawyer
* Thomas Thomson (botanist) (1817–1878), Scottis ...
published the first brief account of Dalton’s atomic theory in the third edition of his book, ''A System of Chemistry''. In 1808 Dalton published a fuller account in the first part of ''A New System of Chemical Philosophy''. However, it was not until 1811 that Dalton provided his rationale for his theory of multiple proportions.
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 O
2. He also mistakenly believed that the simplest compound between any two elements is always one atom of each (so he thought water was HO, not H
2O). 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 assumes the modern water formula (H
2O).
Avogadro
The flaw in Dalton's theory was corrected in principle in 1811 by
Amedeo Avogadro
Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro, Count of Quaregna and Cerreto (, also , ; 9 August 17769 July 1856) was an Italian scientist, most noted for his contribution to molecular theory now known as Avogadro's law, which states that equal volumes ...
. Avogadro had proposed that equal volumes of any two gases, at equal temperature and pressure, contain equal numbers of molecules (in other words, the mass of a gas's particles does not affect the volume that it occupies).
Avogadro's law
Avogadro's law (sometimes referred to as Avogadro's hypothesis or Avogadro's principle) or Avogadro-Ampère's hypothesis is an experimental gas law relating the volume of a gas to the amount of substance of gas present. The law is a specific c ...
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.
Brownian Motion
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
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
theorized that this
Brownian motion
Brownian motion, or pedesis (from grc, πήδησις "leaping"), is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium (a liquid or a gas).
This pattern of motion typically consists of random fluctuations in a particle's position insi ...
was caused by the water molecules continuously knocking the grains about, and developed a hypothetical mathematical model to describe it.
This model was validated experimentally in 1908 by French physicist
Jean Perrin
Jean Baptiste Perrin (30 September 1870 – 17 April 1942) was a French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids ( sedimentation equilibrium), verified Albert Einstein’s explanation of this ...
, thus providing additional validation for particle theory (and by extension atomic theory).
Statistical Mechanics
In order to introduce the
Ideal gas law
The ideal gas law, also called the general gas equation, is the equation of state of a hypothetical ideal gas. It is a good approximation of the behavior of many gases under many conditions, although it has several limitations. It was first stat ...
and statistical forms of physics, it was necessary to postulate the existence of atoms. In 1738, Swiss physicist and mathematician
Daniel Bernoulli
Daniel Bernoulli FRS (; – 27 March 1782) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family from Basel. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechan ...
postulated that the pressure of gases and heat were both caused by the underlying motion of molecules.
In 1860,
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...
, who was a vocal proponent of atomism, was the first to use
statistical mechanics
In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. It does not assume or postulate any natural laws, but explains the macroscopic be ...
in physics.
Ludwig Boltzmann
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the second law of thermodyn ...
and
Rudolf Clausius
Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle ...
expanded his work on gases and the laws of
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...
especially the second law relating to entropy. In the 1870s,
Josiah Willard Gibbs
Josiah Willard Gibbs (; February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in t ...
, sometimes referred to as America’s greatest physicist, extended the laws of entropy and thermodynamics and coined the term “statistical mechanics.” Einstein later independently reinvented Gibb’s laws, because they had only been printed in an obscure American journal. Einstein later commented, had he known of Gibb’s work he would “not have published those papers at all, but confined myself to the treatment of some few points
hat were distinct” All of statistical mechanics and the laws of heat, gas, and entropy were necessarily postulated upon the existence of atoms.
Discovery of subatomic particles
Atoms were thought to be the smallest possible division of matter until 1897 when
J. J. Thomson
Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered.
In 1897, Thomson showed that ...
discovered the
electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...
through his work on
cathode ray
Cathode rays or electron beam (e-beam) are streams of electrons observed in discharge tubes. If an evacuated glass tube is equipped with two electrodes and a voltage is applied, glass behind the positive electrode is observed to glow, due to ele ...
s.
A
Crookes tube
A Crookes tube (also Crookes–Hittorf tube) is an early experimental electrical discharge tube, with partial vacuum, invented by English physicist William Crookes and others around 1869-1875, in which cathode rays, streams of electrons, were dis ...
is a sealed glass container in which two
electrode
An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or air). Electrodes are essential parts of batteries that can consist of a variety of materials de ...
s are separated by a vacuum. When a
voltage
Voltage, also known as electric pressure, electric tension, or (electric) potential difference, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to m ...
is applied across the electrodes, cathode rays are generated, creating a glowing patch where they strike the glass at the opposite end of the tube. Through experimentation, Thomson discovered that the rays could be deflected by an
electric field
An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field fo ...
(in addition to
magnetic field
A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...
s, which was already known). He concluded that these rays, rather than being a form of light, were composed of very light
negatively charged
Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be ''positive'' or ''negative'' (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectiv ...
particles he called "
corpuscles" (they would later be renamed electrons by other scientists). He measured the mass-to-charge ratio and discovered it was 1800 times smaller than that of hydrogen, the smallest atom. These corpuscles were a particle unlike any other previously known.
Thomson suggested that atoms were divisible, and that the corpuscles were their building blocks.
To explain the overall neutral charge of the atom, he proposed that the corpuscles were distributed in a uniform sea of positive charge; this was the
plum pudding model
The plum pudding model is one of several historical scientific models of the atom. First proposed by J. J. Thomson in 1904 soon after the discovery of the electron, but before the discovery of the atomic nucleus, the model tried to explain two pr ...
as the electrons were embedded in the positive charge like raisins in a plum pudding (although in Thomson's model they were not stationary). The reason J. J. Thomson’s spherical positive charge model interspersed with negative electrons was most widely accepted over several different versions of nuclear planetary models was that the Thompson model could best align with classical physics. Solar system models proposed before Thompson always resulted in electrons spiraling into the nucleus.
Discovery of the nucleus
![Geiger-Marsden experiment expectation and result](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Geiger-Marsden_experiment_expectation_and_result.svg)
Thomson's
plum pudding model
The plum pudding model is one of several historical scientific models of the atom. First proposed by J. J. Thomson in 1904 soon after the discovery of the electron, but before the discovery of the atomic nucleus, the model tried to explain two pr ...
was disproved in 1909 by one of his former students,
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics.
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...
, who discovered that most of the mass and positive charge of an atom is concentrated in a very small fraction of its volume, which he assumed to be at the very center.
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics.
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...
and his colleagues
Hans Geiger
Johannes Wilhelm "Hans" Geiger (; ; 30 September 1882 – 24 September 1945) was a German physicist. He is best known as the co-inventor of the detector component of the Geiger counter and for the Geiger–Marsden experiment which discover ...
and
Ernest Marsden
Sir Ernest Marsden (19 February 1889 – 15 December 1970) was an English-New Zealand physicist. He is recognised internationally for his contributions to science while working under Ernest Rutherford, which led to the discovery of new theories ...
came to have doubts about the Thomson model after they encountered difficulties when they tried to build an instrument to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of
alpha particles
Alpha particles, also called alpha rays or alpha radiation, consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium-4 nucleus. They are generally produced in the process of alpha decay, but may also be prod ...
(these are positively-charged particles emitted by certain radioactive substances such as
radium
Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rather t ...
). The alpha particles were being scattered by the air in the detection chamber, which made the measurements unreliable. Thomson had encountered a similar problem in his work on cathode rays, which he solved by creating a near-perfect vacuum in his instruments. Rutherford didn't think he'd run into this same problem because alpha particles are much heavier than electrons. According to Thomson's model of the atom, the positive charge in the atom is not concentrated enough to produce an electric field strong enough to deflect an alpha particle, and the electrons are so lightweight they should be pushed aside effortlessly by the much heavier alpha particles. Yet there was scattering, so Rutherford and his colleagues decided to investigate this scattering carefully.
[ Heilbron (2003). ''Ernest Rutherford and the Explosion of Atoms'', pp. 64-68]
Between 1908 and 1913, Rutherford and his colleagues performed a series of experiments in which they bombarded thin foils of metal with alpha particles. They spotted alpha particles being deflected by angles greater than 90°. To explain this, Rutherford proposed that the positive charge of the atom is not distributed throughout the atom's volume as Thomson believed, but is concentrated in a tiny nucleus at the center. Only such an intense concentration of charge could produce an electric field strong enough to deflect the alpha particles as observed.
[ Rutherford's model is sometimes called the "planetary model". However, ]Hantaro Nagaoka
was a Japanese physicist and a pioneer of Japanese physics during the Meiji period.
Life
Nagaoka was born in Nagasaki, Japan on August 19, 1865 and educated at the University of Tokyo. After graduating with a degree in physics in 1887, Naga ...
was quoted by Rutherford as the first to suggest a planetary atom in 1904. And planetary models had been suggested as early as 1897 such as the one by Joseph Larmor
Sir Joseph Larmor (11 July 1857 – 19 May 1942) was an Irish and British physicist and mathematician who made breakthroughs in the understanding of electricity, dynamics, thermodynamics, and the electron theory of matter. His most influent ...
. Probably the earliest solar system model was found in an unpublished note by Ludwig August Colding in 1854 whose idea was that atoms were analogous to planetary systems that rotate and cause magnetic polarity.
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
Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be ''positive'' or ''negative'' (commonly carried by protons and electrons respe ...
is known to emit electromagnetic wave
In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visib ...
s according to the Larmor formula
In electrodynamics, the Larmor formula is used to calculate the total power radiated by a nonrelativistic point charge as it accelerates. It was first derived by J. J. Larmor in 1897, in the context of the wave theory of light.
When any charged ...
in classical electromagnetism
Classical electromagnetism or classical electrodynamics is a branch of theoretical physics that studies the interactions between electric charges and currents using an extension of the classical Newtonian model; It is, therefore, a classical fie ...
. 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
Absorption spectroscopy refers to spectroscopic techniques that measure the absorption of radiation, as a function of frequency or wavelength, due to its interaction with a sample. The sample absorbs energy, i.e., photons, from the radiating ...
of atoms that were observed.
Quantum theory
Quantum theory may refer to:
Science
*Quantum mechanics, a major field of physics
*Old quantum theory, predating modern quantum mechanics
* Quantum field theory, an area of quantum mechanics that includes:
** Quantum electrodynamics
** Quantum ...
revolutionized physics at the beginning of the 20th century, when Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
postulated that light energy is emitted or absorbed in discrete amounts known as quanta (singular, ''quantum''). This led to a series of quantum atomic models such as the quantum model of Arthur Erich Haas
Arthur Erich Haas (April 30, 1884 in Brno – February 20, 1941 in Chicago) was an Austrian physicist, noted for a 1910 paper he submitted in support of his habilitation as ''Privatdocent'' at the University of Vienna that outlined a treatmen ...
in 1910 and the 1912 John William Nicholson
John William Nicholson, FRS (1 November 1881 – 3 October 1955) was an English mathematician and physicist. Nicholson is noted as the first to create an atomic model that quantized angular momentum as h/2π. Nicholson was also the first to crea ...
quantum atomic model that quantized angular momentum as ''h''/2. In 1913, Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. B ...
incorporated this idea into his Bohr model
In atomic physics, the Bohr model or Rutherford–Bohr model, presented by Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford in 1913, is a system consisting of a small, dense nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons—similar to the structure of the Solar Syste ...
of the atom, in which an electron could only orbit the nucleus in particular circular orbits with fixed angular momentum
In physics, angular momentum (rarely, moment of momentum or rotational momentum) is the rotational analog of linear momentum. It is an important physical quantity because it is a conserved quantity—the total angular momentum of a closed syst ...
and energy, its distance from the 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 "quantum leap
''Quantum Leap'' is an American science fiction television series, created by Donald P. Bellisario, that premiered on NBC and aired for five seasons, from March 26, 1989, to May 5, 1993. The series stars Scott Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a physi ...
s" between the fixed energy level
A quantum mechanical system or particle that is bound—that is, confined spatially—can only take on certain discrete values of energy, called energy levels. This contrasts with classical particles, which can have any amount of energy. The te ...
s. When this occurred, light was emitted or absorbed at a 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 line
A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...
s 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
Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, (; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretica ...
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
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
, in 1913 radiochemist
Radiochemistry is the chemistry of radioactive materials, where radioactive isotopes of elements are used to study the properties and chemical reactions of non-radioactive isotopes (often within radiochemistry the absence of radioactivity leads to ...
Frederick Soddy
Frederick Soddy FRS (2 September 1877 – 22 September 1956) was an English radiochemist who explained, with Ernest Rutherford, that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements, now known to involve nuclear reactions. He also prove ...
discovered that there appeared to be more than one element at each position on the periodic table
The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...
. The term isotope
Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numbers) ...
was coined by Margaret Todd as a suitable name for these elements.
That same year, J. J. Thomson
Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered.
In 1897, Thomson showed that ...
conducted an experiment in which he channeled a stream of neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...
ion
An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge.
The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conve ...
s 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 ions had a different mass.[ s excerpted in Henry A. Boorse & Lloyd Motz, ''The World of the Atom'', Vol. 1 (New York: Basic Books, 1966) Retrieved on August 29, 2007.] The nature of this differing mass would later be explained by the discovery of neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
s in 1932.
Discovery of nuclear particles
In 1917 Rutherford bombarded nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...
gas with alpha particle
Alpha particles, also called alpha rays or alpha radiation, consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium-4 nucleus. They are generally produced in the process of alpha decay, but may also be produce ...
s and observed hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
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 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
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley (; 23 November 1887 – 10 August 1915) was an English physicist, whose contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic num ...
, 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
The atomic mass (''m''a or ''m'') is the mass of an atom. Although the SI unit of mass is the kilogram (symbol: kg), atomic mass is often expressed in the non-SI unit dalton (symbol: Da) – equivalently, unified atomic mass unit (u). 1&nbs ...
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 proton
A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...
s. 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 previously-unknown neutrally charged particles, which were tentatively dubbed "neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
s".
In 1928, Walter Bothe
Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe (; 8 January 1891 – 8 February 1957) was a German nuclear physicist, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 with Max Born.
In 1913, he joined the newly created Laboratory for Radioactivity at the Reich Physi ...
observed that beryllium
Beryllium is a chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form mi ...
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
Paraffin wax (or petroleum wax) is a soft colorless solid derived from petroleum, coal, or oil shale that consists of a mixture of hydrocarbon molecules containing between 20 and 40 carbon atoms. It is solid at room temperature and begins to m ...
. Initially it was thought to be high-energy gamma radiation
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically s ...
, since gamma radiation had a similar effect on electrons in metals, but James Chadwick
Sir James Chadwick, (20 October 1891 – 24 July 1974) was an English physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. In 1941, he wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspi ...
found that the ionization
Ionization, or Ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged atom or molecule i ...
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 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
In 1924, Louis de Broglie
Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie (, also , or ; 15 August 1892 – 19 March 1987) was a French physicist and aristocrat who made groundbreaking contributions to quantum theory. In his 1924 PhD thesis, he postulated the wave na ...
proposed that all moving particles—particularly subatomic particles such as electrons—exhibit a degree of wave-like behavior. Erwin Schrödinger
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (, ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist with Irish citizenship who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theory ...
, 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. Schrödinger's equation, published in 1926, describes an electron as a wave function
A wave function in quantum physics is a mathematical description of the quantum state of an isolated quantum system. The wave function is a complex-valued probability amplitude, and the probabilities for the possible results of measurements mad ...
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 mathematically convenient, it was difficult to visualize, and faced opposition. One of its critics, Max Born
Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a n ...
, proposed instead that Schrödinger's wave function did not describe the physical extent of an electron (like a charge distribution in classical electromagnetism), but rather gave the probability that an electron would, when measured, be found at a particular point. This reconciled the ideas of wave-like and particle-like electrons: the behavior of an electron, or of any other subatomic entity, has both wave-like and particle-like aspects, and whether one aspect or the other is more apparent depends upon the situation.
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
In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physic ...
after the theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent series ...
, who first published a version of it in 1927. (Heisenberg analyzed a thought experiment
A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences.
History
The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...
where one attempts to measure an electron's position and momentum simultaneously. However, Heisenberg did not give precise mathematical definitions of what the "uncertainty" in these measurements meant. The precise mathematical statement of the position-momentum uncertainty principle is due to Earle Hesse Kennard
Earle Hesse Kennard (August 2, 1885 – January 31, 1968) was a theoretical physicist and professor at Cornell University.
Biography
Kennard was born in Columbus, Ohio and studied at Pomona College and Oxford University as part of a Rhodes Sch ...
, Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics fo ...
, and Hermann Weyl
Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, (; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, he is assoc ...
.) 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 and angular momentum
In physics, angular momentum (rarely, moment of momentum or rotational momentum) is the rotational analog of linear momentum. It is an important physical quantity because it is a conserved quantity—the total angular momentum of a closed syst ...
, exists more frequently in certain regions around the nucleus than others; this pattern is referred to as its atomic orbital
In atomic theory and quantum mechanics, an atomic orbital is a function describing the location and wave-like behavior of an electron in an atom. This function can be used to calculate the probability of finding any electron of an atom in any spe ...
. The orbitals come in a variety of shapes—sphere
A sphere () is a Geometry, geometrical object that is a solid geometry, three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...
, dumbbell
The dumbbell, a type of free weight, is a piece of equipment used in weight training. It can be used individually or in pairs, with one in each hand.
History
The forerunner of the dumbbell, halteres, were used in ancient Greece as lifting w ...
, torus
In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle.
If the axis of revolution does not tou ...
, etc.—with the nucleus in the middle. The shapes of atomic orbitals are found by solving the Schrödinger equation; however, analytic solutions of the Schrödinger equation are known for very few relatively simple model Hamiltonians including the hydrogen atom
A hydrogen atom is an atom of the chemical element hydrogen. The electrically neutral atom contains a single positively charged proton and a single negatively charged electron bound to the nucleus by the Coulomb force. Atomic hydrogen consti ...
and the dihydrogen cation
The dihydrogen cation or hydrogen molecular ion is a cation (positive ion) with formula . It consists of two hydrogen nuclei ( protons) sharing a single electron. It is the simplest molecular ion.
The ion can be formed from the ionization of a ...
. Even the helium
Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. ...
atom—which contains just two electrons—has defied all attempts at a fully analytic treatment.
See also
*Spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...
* History of molecular theory
*Timeline of chemical element discoveries
The discovery of the 118 chemical elements known to exist as of 2022 is presented in chronological order. The elements are listed generally in the order in which each was first defined as the pure element, as the exact date of discovery of most el ...
*Introduction to quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the study of matter and its interactions with energy on the scale of atomic and subatomic particles. By contrast, classical physics explains matter and energy only on a scale familiar to human experience, including the b ...
*Kinetic theory of gases
Kinetic (Ancient Greek: κίνησις “kinesis”, movement or to move) may refer to:
* Kinetic theory, describing a gas as particles in random motion
* Kinetic energy, the energy of an object that it possesses due to its motion
Art and enter ...
*Atomism
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atoms ...
*''The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory
''The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory'' ( publisher: ''S. Hirzel Verlag'', 1930) by Nobel laureate (1932) Werner Heisenberg and subsequently translated by Carl Eckart and Frank C. Hoyt. The book was first published in 1930 by University ...
''
Footnotes
Bibliography
*
*
*
Further reading
*Bernard Pullman
Bernard Pullman (19 March 1919, Włocławek Poland – 9 June 1996) was a French theoretical quantum chemist and quantum biochemist.
Pullman studied at the Sorbonne, then spent the Second World War as a French Army officer in Africa and the Mid ...
(1998) ''The Atom in the History of Human Thought'', trans. by Axel Reisinger. Oxford Univ. Press.
*Eric Scerri
Eric R. Scerri is a chemist, writer and philosopher of science of Maltese origin. He is a lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles; and the founder and editor-in-chief of '' Foundations of Chemistry'', an international peer reviewed ...
(2007) ''The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance'', Oxford University Press, New York.
*Charles Adolphe Wurtz
Charles Adolphe Wurtz (; 26 November 181710 May 1884) was an Alsatian French chemist. He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinio ...
(1881) ''The Atomic Theory'', D. Appleton and Company, New York.
* Alan J. Rocke (1984) ''Chemical Atomism in the Nineteenth Century: From Dalton to Cannizzaro'', Ohio State University Press, Columbus (open access full text at http://digital.case.edu/islandora/object/ksl%3Ax633gj985).
External links
Atomism
by S. Mark Cohen.
- detailed information on atomic theory with respect to electrons and electricity.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atomic Theory
*
Statistical mechanics
Chemistry theories
Foundational quantum physics
Amount of substance