Outline of the History of Atomic Theory and the Periodic Table 400 500 BC Greek philosophers suggested that

t matter consisted of indivisible fundamental particles. In the 5 th century, Democritus named the particles atoms from the Greek word for indivisible. Greeks though that only four elements existed: fire, water, earth, and air. The atomistic view was a minority view for 1000 years. (Prevailing view was that everything was continuously divisible.) The laws of conservation of mass (Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, France), of definite proportion (or constant composition, Joseph Louis Proust), and of multiple proportions (John Dalton, England) resulted in the proposition of the atomic theory of matter (John Dalton, England). The theory provided a detailed explanation of the composition of the elements (atoms), the ability of atoms to combine to form compounds, and the role of atoms in chemical reactions, and the nature of atoms (indivisible, unchanging, unalterable). All atoms of a particular element were considered to be identical and atoms of different elements different. John Dalton (England) publishes a table of relative atomic masses of the elements, many of them are incorrect. Berzelius publishes a table of relative atomic masses of the 54 known elements, many of them are accurate to this day. Electrochemical experiments lead Michael Faraday (England) to conclude that some particle was common to both electricity and matter, that there was an electrical component to matter. J.A.R. Newland (England) publishes the first periodic table of the elements. He observed that arranging the elements in order of increasing atomic mass in rows of seven put elements with similar properties into the same column. He calls this the law of octaves. His work was greeted with scorn and ridicule. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (Russia) arranges the elements in order of increasing atomic weight and similarities in chemical properties. He left blanks in the spaces where there was a jump (discontinuity) in the mass or the chemical properties, arguing that the element had not yet been discovered. He predicted the properties of these undiscovered elements (scandium, gallium, and germanium). By 1886 these elements were discovered and he had predicted their relative atomic mass, density, and chemical reactivity correctly. Lothar Meyer (Germany), unaware of Mendeleevs work, publishes a periodic table of the elements along with extensive graphs showing the periodic table of the elements. Discovery of cathode rays (negatively charged particles) by William Crookes (England) given off by the atoms of the cathode in cathode ray tubes. Since matter is usually electrically neutral, these results lead to the conclusion that a positively charged particle must also exist. Eugen Goldstein (Germany) found that positive ions were formed when cathode rays struck the anode in a cathode ray tube. Wilhelm Konrad Rntgen (Germany) accidentally discovers that X-rays are emitted from metals bombarded by cathode rays (electrons). Rntgen was awarded the first Nobel prize in Physics in 1901. Antoine Henri Becqueral (France) discovers that uranium is radioactive. J.J. Thomson (England) determined the charge-to-mass ratio of the particles in cathode rays, which were given the name electrons. Thomson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906. Robert Millikan (USA) measured the charge on oil drops and used these results to determine the charge of an electron. Knowing the charge and the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron allowed the calculation of the electron mass. Millikan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923. Sir Ernest Rutherford (New Zealand/England) investigated the bombardment of thin gold foil by alpha particles. His observations that most of the particles passed straight through the foil undeflected and that few of the particles were totally deflected lead to his proposition of a nuclear atom. In the nuclear atom, virtually all of the mass was concentrated in the small positively charged core of the nucleus, electrons surrounded the nucleus, the vast majority of the atom is empty space. Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. The existence of protons was confirmed. Niels Bohr (Denmark) propses model of atom to explain absorption and emission spectra of atoms. In this model, electrons orbited the nucleus in well defined orbits (fixed radii). Each radii corresponded to a specific energy level. When the energy of light incident upon the atom was identical to the energy spacing between two energy levels (orbits), the electron could be excited to that level (absorption). An electron excited into a high energy level (large orbit) could fall into a lower level (small orbit) and emit light that had the same energy as the difference between the two energy levels (emission). Bohr received the Nobel prize in Physics in 1922. Louis de Broglie (France) proposes that electrons could have wave-like properties as well as particle-like properties. Broglie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1929. Erwin Schrdinger (Austria) expressed the positions and energies of electrons in an atom in terms of mathematical equations that describe waves. The solutions to the equations represent the orbitals that electrons occupy in an atom. Schrdinger was awarded the Nobel prize in Physics in 1933. James C. Chadwick (England) discovers the neutron. Chadwick received the Nobel prize in Physics in 1935. Dr Gerd Binnig and Dr Heinrich Rohrer, IBM Research Laboratory, Zurich, Switzerland, were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their design of the scanning tunneling microscope. The scanning tunneling microscope was the first instrument that could image individual atoms.

1803 1808

1808 1828 1834 1864

1869

1870 1859 1900

1886 1895

1897

1909

1910

1911 1913

1924

1926

1932 1986