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Atomic Theory Timeline

  • Antoine Lavoisier

    Antoine Lavoisier
    He is widely considered in popular literature as the "father of modern chemistry". He recognized and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783) and opposed the phlogiston theory. Lavoisier helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature. He predicted the existence of silicon (1787)[5] and was also the first to establish that sulfur was an element (1777) rather than a compound.[6] He discovered that, although matter may chang
  • John Dalton

    John Dalton
    He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory; and his research into color blindness, sometimes referred to as Daltonism, in his honor.
  • Joesph Louis Proust

    Joesph Louis Proust
    Proust’s largest accomplishment into the realm of science was disproving Berthollet with the law of definite proportions, which is sometimes also known as Proust's Law. Proust studied copper carbonate, the two tin oxides, and the two iron sulfides to prove this law. He did this by making artificial copper carbonate and comparing it to natural copper carbonate. With this he showed that each had the same proportion of weights between the three elements involved (Cu, C, O). Between the two types of
  • Michael Faraday

    Michael Faraday
    His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. Faraday invented an early form of what was to become the Bunsen burner
  • Ernest Rutherford

    Ernest Rutherford
    At Cambridge, Rutherford started to work with J. J. Thomson on the conductive effects of X-rays on gases, work which led to the discovery of the electron which Thomson presented to the world in 1897.
  • JJ Thompson

    JJ Thompson
    Thomson, in 1897, was the first to suggest that one of the fundamental units was more than 1,000 times smaller than an atom, suggesting the subatomic particle now known as the electron
  • Indivisible, Solid Sphere Model

    Indivisible, Solid Sphere Model
    The Solid Sphere Model was the first atomic model and was developed by John Dalton in the early 19th century. He hypothesized that an atom is a solid sphere that could not be divided into smaller particles.
  • Marie Curie

    Marie Curie
    She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win twice in multiple sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes.
  • Plum Pudding Model

    Plum Pudding Model
    The Plum Pudding Model was discovered by JJ Thompson
  • Otto Hahn

    Otto Hahn
    Hahn discovered a new substance he called radiothorium (thorium-228), which at that time was believed to be a new radioactive element.
  • Robert Millikan

    Robert Millikan
    Starting in 1908, while a professor at the University of Chicago, Millikan worked on an oil-drop experiment in which he measured the charge on a single electron.
  • Planetary Model

    Planetary Model
    In 1913 Bohr published a theory about the structure of the atom based on an earlier theory of Rutherford's. Rutherford had shown that the atom consisted of a positively charged nucleus, with negatively charged electrons in orbit around it.
  • Albert Einstein

    Albert Einstein
    Published famous equation E=mc 2
  • Lisa Meitner

    Lisa Meitner
    Lise Meitner was an Austrian physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. In 1917, she and Hahn discovered the first long-lived isotope of the element protactinium, for which she was awarded the Leibniz Medal by the Berlin Academy of Sciences.
  • Ernest Schrodinger

    Ernest Schrodinger
    developed a number of fundamental results in the field of quantum theory, which formed the basis of wave mechanics: he formulated the wave equation (stationary and time-dependent Schrödinger equation) and revealed the identity of his development of the formalism and matrix mechanics. Schrödinger proposed an original interpretation of the physical meaning of the wave function.
  • Niels Bohr

    Niels Bohr
    Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, in which he proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level (or orbit) to another.
  • Electron Cloud Model

    Electron Cloud Model
    Erwin Schrödinger built upon the thoughts of Bohr yet took them in a new direction. He developed the probability function for the Hydrogen atom (and a few others). The probability function basically describes a cloud-like region where the electron is likely to be found
  • James Chadwick

    James Chadwick
    In 1932, Chadwick made a fundamental discovery in the domain of nuclear science: he proved the existence of neutrons - elementary particles devoid of any electrical charge.
  • Max Planck

    Max Planck
    Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as an originator of the quantum theory.