Atomic Theory
The Atom.
A complex and intriguing peace of matter which, in the minds of early Greek philosophers, indivisible. Imagine a piece of something that cannot be broken or smashed into little pieces. That is what the atom is all about. Men have worked their whole lives to try and find a concrete solution to the problem of how small an atom really is.
Even in the days before Christ men like Aristotle and Democrotis had Ideas about what matter was made out of. They believed that all substances were made up of indivisible particles, which they called atoms (from the Greek for uncuttable). The Ideas of the early philosophers were not that wrong, but not being able to see something so tiny had people believing that there were no such things as "atoms". As a result the ideas about what atoms were disappeared until the 1800's.
At the beginning of the 18th century a scientist named Dalton came up with a theory about atoms and matter. He said that:
"All matter is made up of tiny, indivisible particles called atoms. Atoms of an element have identical properties. Atoms of different elements have different properties. Atoms of two or more elements can combine in constant ratios to form new substances".
But a quarter of the way through the 20th century Dalton's theory had a couple of holes poked through it. In one instance J.J Thomson passed electricity through gases in vacuum tubes and found evidence for the existence of negatively charged particles that could be removed from the atoms. Thomson used the model of a raisin bun in which the raisins represent the negative electrons and the bun represents the region of positive charge. Adding on to this observation Rutherford coined the word "Proton" for the smallest unit of positive charge. Discovering this while trying to pass alpha particles through a sheet of gold film. Rutherford also suggested that the electrons are in space surrounding the nucleus.
After the discovery of the Proton, A man named Niels Bohr used his genius and put 2 + 2 together. Bohr combined several theories and came up with his own theory which states:
Bohrs Theory
-Each electron has a fixed quantity of energy related to the circular orbit in which the electron is found
-Electrons cannot exist between orbits, but they can move to unfilled orbits if a quantum of energy is absorbed or released
-The higher the energy level of an electron, the further it is from the nucleus
-The maximum number of electrons in the first three energy levels is 2, 8, and 8
-An atom with a maximum number of electrons in it's outermost energy level is stable; that is, unreactive.
Schroedinger's basis for the "Quantum Mechanical" model of an atom changed our view of what the "smallest particle" looks like. His "Wave Equation" allowed him to calculate the energy levels in the hydrogen atom. This equation requires a knowledge of differential calculus. While most of Schroedinger's theories and equations are very complex he gave us a different way to look at an atom, electronically. The answers to his equation gives us quantum numbers which we can use to establish the position and charge of the particles in an atom.
From bread dough to electronic configuration Atomic theory has come a long way. Thanks to founders such as Democritus and Aristotle. Scientists like Dalton , Thomson, and Rutherford. And genius like Bohr and Schroedinger. We have today a modern Atomic Theory which changes as I write.
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