PHILIPPINE SCIENCE HIGH SCHOOL

CARAGA REGION CAMPUS

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE

ATOMIC THEORY

Christian Lawrence B. Faelnar

Passed to:
Mr. Jesse Riveral
 JOHN DALTON
 He noticed through his experiments that “the air is not a
vast chemical solvent as Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and
his followers had thought, but a mechanical system,
where the pressure exerted by each gas in a mixture is
independent of the pressure exerted by the other gases,
and where the total pressure is the sum of the pressures
of each gas."
 This led to him discovering that atoms were different in
weight and structure.
 Developed the Dalton Atomic Theory based on his five
main points:
1. Everything is composed of atoms, which are the indivisible building blocks of
matter and cannot be destroyed.
2. All atoms of an element are identical.
3. The atoms of different elements vary in size and mass.
4. Compounds are produced through different whole-number combinations of
atoms.
5. A chemical reaction results in the rearrangement of atoms in the reactant and
product compounds.
 J.J. THOMSON
 In the late 1800s, Thomson was experimenting with his
cathode ray tube.
 He concluded that The particles are attracted by positive
(+) charges and repelled by negative (−) charges, so they
must be negatively charged (like charges repel and
unlike charges attract); they are less massive than atoms
and indistinguishable, regardless of the source material,
so they must be fundamental, subatomic constituents of
all atoms.
 In 1904, Thomson proposed the “plum pudding” model
of atoms, which described a positively charged mass
with an equal amount of negative charge in the form of
electrons embedded in it, since all atoms are electrically
neutral.
 ERNEST RUTHERFORD
 He performed a series of experiments using a beam of
high-speed, positively charged alpha particles that were
produced by the radioactive decay of radium.
 They noticed that most particles passed through the foil,
while others where deflected.
 He then came to the conclusion that:
1. The volume occupied by an atom must consist of a large
amount of empty space.
2. A small, relatively heavy, positively charged body, the
nucleus, must be at the center of each atom.
 This analysis led Rutherford to propose a model in which

an atom consists of a very small, positively charged

nucleus, in which most of the mass of the atom is
concentrated, surrounded by the negatively charged
electrons, so that the atom is electrically neutral.
 NIELS BOHR
 In 1913, Niels Bohr proposed a model for a hydrogen
model that explained its emission spectrum.
 It had one assumption: The electrons move around the
nucleus that can only allow certain radii.
 He showed that the energy of an elctron in a particular
orbit is given by:
En=−RHhcn/2
 He could not explain, however, why they were restricted
to a single orbit only.
 ERWIN SCHRODINGER
 In 1926, Schrodinger took the Bohr atom model further.
 Schrodinger used Mathematical equations to describe
the likelihood of finding an electron in a certain position.
 This model is known as the Quantum Mechanical Model.
 The model predicts the odds of finding an electron’s
location.
 Where the cloud is most dense is where the highest
chances of finding an electron is located.
 JAMES CHADWICK
 In 1932, James Chadwick bombarded beryllium atoms
with atom particles which produced an unknown
radiation.
 He interpreted this radiation as being composed of
particles with a neutral electrical charge and the
approximate mass of a proton.
 This particle became known as the neutron.
 Chadwick proceeded to make a model of the atom with
neutrons.