Democritus:

He introduced the atom, he

John Dalton:
Dalton thought of the
hypothesis that the sizes of
History of
the Atom
wondered what the outcome J. J. Thomson:
the particles making up Discovered
of cutting a piece matter was,
different gases must be the electron
and how far you could cut this
different. He calculated Thomson
piece of matter until it was too
atomic weights from showed that
small to cut. He completed a
percentage compositions of cathode rays Robert Millikan:
simple experiment and took a
compounds, using an were particles He worked out the charge of an
seashell and broke it in half
arbitrary system to with a electron
repeatedly, until it was powder,
determine the likely atomic negative Oil experiment.
and he could no longer break
structure of each compound. electric charge
it.
and much
smaller than
an atom

Max Planck: Marie Curie:

Antoine Lavoisier: He proposed that energy is She found out that radioactivity
He found that mass is conserved radiated in very minute and does not depend o how the
in a chemical reaction and led to discrete quantized amounts atoms are arranged into
the fundamental law of or packets, rather than in a molecules, but rather originates
conservation of matter which continuous unbroken wave. within the atoms themselves.She
states that matter is conserved in He used the Franck-Hertz conducted experiments on
a chemical reaction Experiment which is an uranium rays and found that they
Lavoisier’s experiments revealed experiment which remained constant, no matter
that the combined masses of demonstrated the existence the condition or shape of the
mercury and oxygen were exactly of excited states in mercury uranium. The rays were from
equal to the mass of calyx of atoms. element's atomic structure.
 Albert Einstein: Erwin Schrodinger: James Chadwick:
Einstein also in 1905 Schrödinger used mathematical He discovered the
Ernest mathematically proved equations to describe the likelihood neutron, a particle
Rutherford: the existence of atoms, of finding an electron in a certain with no electric
He discovered and thus helped position. This atomic model is known charge. Chadwick
the nucleus. He revolutionize all the as the quantum mechanical model of placed a piece of
carried the Gold sciences using statistics the atom. 4. Schrödinger’s wave beryllium in a
foil experiment and probability. He used equation - Schrödinger established vacuum chamber
in which he fired his theory of quanta; the correctness of the equation by with some
alpha particles Einstein then explained applying it to the hydrogen atom, polonium. The
at a gold foil and the photoelectric effect. predicting many of its properties polonium emitted
then measured with remarkable accuracy alpha rays, which hi
the deflection of the beryllium
these which
hinted to him
that there must
be a positively
charged matter Louis De Broglie:
Niels Bohr: Werner Heisenberg: He proposed that
in the centre of 1912 Bohr joined Through formulating quantum mechanics in terms of
the atom electrons have a
Rutherford. He realized matrices and in discovering the uncertainty principle, wave/particle duality.
that Rutherford's model which states that a particle's position and momentum He substantiated by
was not quite right. By cannot both be known exactly. He found that the act the way streams of
all rules of classical of measuring an electron's properties by hitting it electrons were
physics, it should be with gamma rays would alter the electron's reflected against
very unstable. He behaviour. He could measure the position of an crystals and spread
discovered the electron electron (or other particle) OR he could measure its through thin metal
shells and its orbit momentum. But the more precisely you measure the foils.
around the nucleus. one property, the more you throw the other one off.