History of an Atom

According to my timeline, the advances of technology has helped a lot with the atomic model. When Democritus came up with the idea of an atom, Dalton took that idea and experimented with it, technology helped him create his “Bowling Ball” model and what the model would look like. After Daltons’ atomic model was created JJ Thompson worked off of Daltons’ model and he discovered that there were electrons in atoms, he was then able to create the “Plum-Pudding” model based off the things he learned and experimented with. Rutherford did the “Gold Foil Experiment” and was able to shoot positive alpha particles at the gold foil, so atoms went straight through but some bounced back because of the atom had a positive nucleus with electrons around it, that prompted a change in the atomic model. After the “Gold Foil Experiment” Rutherford had used the information that he learned to create the “Nuclear Model.” Millikan wanted to see the charge of an atom, so he used technology to create the “Oil Drop” experiment and was able to determine the charge of an atom that was constant for all electrons. Bohr knew that electrons had a negative charge so he used that information and was able to determine that electrons orbit the nucleus because of the negative charge they had, Bohr was able to create the “Planetary Model.” Chadwick discovered that the nucleus of an atom was made up of protons and neutrons. Heisenberg, deBroglie, Schrodinger, and Planck worked together to create the “Quantum Mechanical Model” which they discovered that there was an electron cloud around the nucleus. Based on the information just shared technology has helped scientist piece together the information they learned from each experiment to come up with the now modern day atomic model.