ATOM AND THE ATOMIC THEORY

Late 400 BC, the word Atom was first used by the Greek Philosopher and

Scientist named Democritus. Democritus suggest that an Atom was a small part of

matter which is impossible to be seen. He also suggested that Atoms are completely

solid that it doesn’t have an internal structure and each atom has a different size,

weight and shape. After a long period of time, John Dalton adapted Democritus

Theory into his first modern atomic model. In late 1890’s, J.J Thompson who was a

physicist discovered “ELECTRON”, an electron was known as the negative charge

of an Atom, due to J.J Thomson discovery it disapprove the theory of Democritus

that an atom doesn’t have an internal structure. J.J Thompson also predicted what an

atom should look like, so he presented his model which is the “THOMPSON

ATOMIC MODEL” or also called as the Plum Pudding Model due to it’s design. In

this model each atom is sphere filled with positively charged fluid and there are

plums inside of it that resembles the negative charge of an atom which are the

“Electron”. In 1910’s, Ernest Rutherford was not convince on J.J Thompson Atomic

Model so he conducted an experiment which is the Gold Foil Experiment and later

that he suggested that there must be a positive charge in the atom which he called it

as the “NUCLEUS”, he come up with a model which is the “PLANETARY

MODEL”, this model suggest that the atoms are like a mini solar system in which the

electrons circled around in a nucleus in wide orbit. At the same year Neils Bohr sees

some flaws in Ernest Rutherford Atomic Model, he was able to give the answer why

the electrons do not collapse into the nucleus, in his Rutherford-Bohr Model)

electrons orbit the nucleus that have a set size and energy, the lower the energy the

lower the orbit is. The electrons fill up the orbitals and they fill the lower energy first
and if an energy level was filled, a new energy level will begin. So when an electron

moves a “RADITION” occurs. But, it is still not the end In 1920’s a Revolutionary

Physicist come up with an Atomic Model that was still being use today. In His Model

the electron does not travel in an exact orbit but we can predict where the electrons

ought to be and it agrees with the idea of Bohr where the orbit of an atom was depend

on its energy level. (The History of The Atom Notes Condensed n.p)

The discovery of Atom helped the development of science in a way that we can

understand matter more, it helps us to understand the properties of matter like water,

liquid, gas and plasma. Imagine if you were a chemist, without the knowledge about

Atom, it is very hard for you to explain things. The discovery of it started an

innovation where it helps us discover more thing and to create more ideas.

“The History of The Atom Notes Condensed”. WWW.Sisd.Net, n/I

https://www.sisd.net/cms/lib/TX01001452/Centricity/Domain/1297/The_history

_of_the_atom_Notes-_condensed.pdf. Accesed April 18, 2019.