Atom art

Atoms: From the Past to the Present

  • Democritis

    Democritis
    BC 500: Democritis said that all matter is made up of atoms.
  • Aristotle

    Aristotle
    BC 384-322: Aristotle said that there are four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
  • Philipp Lenard

    Philipp Lenard
    Lenard proposed the model of an atom to have each positive and negative charge bound together. He also did a large amout of work with cathode rays.
  • JJ Thompson

    JJ Thompson
    Thompson introduced the plum pudding model of an atom. He said that the space in it was positive and that electrons floated around inside it.
  • Albert Einstein

    Albert Einstein
    Albert Einstein said that mass equals the speed of light squared.
  • R.A. Millikan

    R.A. Millikan
    R.A. Millikan found the mass and charge of an electron using his oil drop experiment. Mass=9.11 x 10 -28 gram Charge: 1.602 x 10 -19 coulomb
  • Rutherford

    Rutherford
    After doing his gold foil experiment, Rutherford developed his atomic theory. He said that the nucleus is positively charged and in the middle of the atom. He proposed that the rest of the atom is empty and electrons orbit around it.
  • Niels Bohr

    Niels Bohr
    Bohr proposed the model of an atom where elecrons move like planets around a nucleus. He added that they have different energy levels and can jump from one to another when they are excited and when they absorb or emmit photons.
  • Rutherford

    Rutherford
    Rutherford discovered the proton by doing many experiments around radiation. He was able to isolate it to find that it was positively charged.
  • Shroedinger and Hiesenberg

    Shroedinger and Hiesenberg
    Shroedinger and Heisenberg decided that it is uncertain where an electron actually is inside an atom.
  • Cockroft and Walton

    Cockroft and Walton
    Cockcroft and Walton discovered alpha particles by building a linear accelerator and attacking lithium with protons.
  • James Chadwick

    James Chadwick
    James Chadwick discovered the neutron. An atomic particle with the same mass as a proton.
  • Enrico Fermi

    Enrico Fermi
    Enrico Fermi made the first chain reaction releasing energy from the atom's nucleus.