Atomic Theory In The Late 1800's

Democritus of Abdera was a greek philosopher born around 460 BC, a cheerful and blissful man. He was one of the two founding fathers of the Atomic Theory. His thought process on the theory, was that matter was comprised of tiny building particles called atoms. This theory was widely questionable at this time. As people were not very well accustomed with accepting new ideas, and/or new concepts of philosophy and science. This theory was only partially correct, and as scientist of the more modern age began to look deeper into Democritus’s work, they begin to make new theories and hypothesize new ideas about the atom. Which later on, would lead to the development of the atomic theory and the most accurate description of the atom with the work of Niels Bohr.

The atomic theory is very well known across the science community. It took many scientist to get it to what it is today. Aristotle and Democritus are played major parts in forming the atomic theory. They came up with a bunch of theories and made big contributions to the start of the atomic theory.

the old view of atoms as the basic building blocks of the material world and Newtonian physics

  The understanding of the structure of atoms has changed throughout history. The first documented case of the discovery of atoms dates back to 450 B.C with two Greek philosophers, Leucippus and Democritus (Doc. 1). This was only a theory; however, they proposed the idea that all matter is made up of atoms.

What is an atom? An atom is the basic building block of everything. An atom is made of electrons protons and neutrons and the number of protons determines the element. Back in the 1800’s this whole idea was unknown. In the 1800’s steam was starting to power everything. It became important to know how steam works, so you can learn to use it more effectively. It was this idea that drove Dalton to research the atom.

Around 2,500 years ago, Democritus and his partner Leucippus were the first ones to develop the atomic theory in written history. Their theory proposed that every kind of matter was made up of tiny particles, which were named atomos, which means that it is indivisible. This meant that Democritus and Leucippus thought there were little particles of everything, but, the next breakthrough in atomic theory wasn’t made until the early 1800s with a french chemist by the name of Antoine Lavoisier, he was the one who came up with the idea of the law of the conservation of mass, which states that matter stays the same even when it changes shape or form. Then, James Dalton said that all matter was made up of atoms, which were indivisible, and unbreakable.

He stated that this was a mysterious force but never continued his research on it. Then in 460 B.C. there was a philosopher named Democritus. Democritus and his mentor Leocippus posed the question that if he broke bread into multiple pieces how many would breaks would it take until there was no more bread. He then was able to make a few theories being all matter was created of atoms and atoms are solid but not invisible. However, there was a man named Aristotle and many other philosophers who disagreed with Democritus and said matter was composed of four main elements. Earth, fire, air, and water. For example, a liquid was made of water and a stone was made of rock. Therefore, Democritus’s theory “ was rejected by Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers of Ancient Greece; and the atomic theory was ignored for nearly 2,000 years.”(

Democritus made the atomic theory widely known, which stated that the universe is composed of two elements: the atoms and the void in which these atoms exist and move. (More, 1646)

Around 1803 John Dalton, an English chemist developed the first useful atomic theory of matter. Amedeo Avogadro, the Italian chemist in 1811 published an article drawing the distinction between the atom and the molecule, which now is known as “Avogadro’s

Over the course of the last 5000 years, mankind’s knowledge has been constantly advancing. Chemistry, a branch of science, has experienced a tremendous leap and expansions since ancient Greek civilization. One of the major breakthroughs in the advancement in Chemistry was the creation of the Atomic theory, which laid a foundation for the modern-day Chemistry and future of science. The Atomic theory introduced the idea of atoms, which are defined as the discrete units of matter. There are five key scientists that significantly contributed to the Atomic model over a span of thousands of years. They are: Democritus, John Dalton, J.J. Thompson, Ernest Rutherford, and Niels Bohr.

Each different scientist made an impact in some way to the origins of an atom. Lucretius’s work, De Rerum Natura, was the basis for many future scientists. Robert Boyle was a very religious man and people believed that was the reason for him not marrying. Boyle constructed the idea that the air was made up of different particles with each having different functions. Huygens first thought of the idea that waves of light moved in a spherical shape. His wave theory is still used today along with Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. Isaac Newton is highly popular for his theory of gravity. Bernoulli began with the idea of the kinetic theory of gases in his work, Hydrodynamics. Newton gave the image to a lot of scientists after him of what an

Who was Demetri Mendeleev and what is his contribution? 14. What is the periodic table? 15. What are groups/families?

The word atom comes from atomos, meaning indivisible as an ancient Greek word. Demokritos, a Greek philosopher, maintained that all matter could be divided and sub-divided into smaller units. Eventually there would be a tiny particle that could not be divided any further - an atom. They said that this is remarkable because the ancient Greeks could not observe and experiment

The Daltons research papers changes, he began to study and observe the physical sciences: heat conduction, gas expansion by heat, the properties of light, the aurora borealis, and meteorology. These studies helped him establish The Atomic Theory. Dalton's atomic theory proposed that all matter was composed of atoms, indivisible and indestructible building blocks. While all atoms of an element were identical, different elements had atoms of differing size and mass.Dalton's atomic theory also stated that all compounds were composed of combinations of these atoms in defined ratios.Dalton also postulated that chemical reactions resulted in the rearrangement of the reacting atoms. Terms atom The smallest possible amount of matter that still retains its identity as a chemical element, now known to consist of a nucleus surrounded by electrons. atomic mass unit The standard unit that is used for indicating mass of an

The Discovery of the Atom first came from the Greeks which made a theory “The idea that all matter is made up of tiny, indivisible particles, or atoms, is believed to have originated with the Greek philosopher Leucippus of Miletus and his student Democritus of Abdera in the 5th century B.C. (The word atom comes from the Greek word atomos, which means “indivisible.”)” (InfoPlease Atomic theory)