Jordan, Fae Arabella V.
Timeline of the Development of the Structure of
an Atom
• 400 B.C. Democritus’ atomic theory posited
that all matter is made up small indestructible
units he called atoms.
• 1704 Isaac Newton theorized a mechanical
universe with small, solid masses in
motion.He began to understand that atoms
or particles move and are not stationary.
• 1803 John Dalton proposed that elements
consisted of atoms that were identical and had
the same mass and that compounds were
atoms from different elements combined
together.
1) All matter is made of atoms. Atoms are
indivisible and indestructible.
2) All atoms of a given element are identical
in mass and properties
3) Compounds are formed by a
combination of two or more different kinds
of atoms.
4) A chemical reaction is a rearrangement
of atoms.
• 1832 Michael Faraday studied the effect
of electricity on solutions, coined term
"electrolysis" as a splitting of molecules with
electricity, developed laws of electrolysis.
Faraday himself was not a proponent of
atomism.
• 1859 Julius Plucker built one of the first
cathode-ray tubes.
• 1869 Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic
table. Arranged elements into 7 groups with
similar properties. He discovered that the
properties of elements "were periodic
functions of the their atomic weights". This
became known as the Periodic Law.
• 1873 James Clerk Maxwell proposed the
theory of electromagnetism and made the
connection between light and electromagnetic
waves. He proposed that electric and
magnetic fields filled the void.
• 1874 G.J. Stoney theorized that electricity
was comprised of negative particles he called
electrons.
• 1879 Sir William Crookes’ experiments
with cathode-ray tubes led him to confirm the
work of earlier scientists by definitively
demonstrating that cathode-rays have a
negative charge and had the following
properties: travel in straight lines from the
cathode; cause glass to fluoresce; impart a
negative charge to objects they strike; are
deflected by electric fields and magnets to
suggest a negative charge; cause pinwheels
in their path to spin indicating they have mass.
• 1886 E. Goldstein discovered canal rays,
which have a positive charge equal to an
electron.
• 1895 Wilhelm Roentgen discovered
x-rays.Using a CRT he observed that nearby
chemicals glowed. Further experiments found
very penetrating rays coming from the CRT
that were not deflected by a magnetic field. He
named them "X-rays".
• 1896 Henri Becquerel discovered radiation
by studying the effects of x-rays on
photographic film.
• 1897 J.J. Thomson determined the charge
to mass ratio of electrons. He used a CRT to
experimentally determine the charge to mass
ratio (e/m) of an electron =1.759 x 10 8
coulombs/gram.
• 1898 Rutherford discovered alpha, beta,
and gamma rays in radiation. He studied
radiations emitted from uranium and named
them alpha and beta.He estimated atom
size and concluded mass was concentrated
in the nucleus.
Jordan, Fae Arabella V.

• 1898 Marie Sklodowska Curie discovered • 1938 Lise Meitner, Hahn , Strassman
radium and polonium and coined the term conducted experiments verifying that heavy
radioactivity after studying the decay process elements capture neutrons and form unstable
of uranium and thorium. products which undergo fission. This
process ejects more neutrons continuing the
• 1900 Max Planck proposed the idea of
fission chain reaction.
quantization to explain how a hot, glowing
object emitted light. • 1941 - 51 Glenn Seaborg synthesized 6
transuranium elements and suggested a
• 1900 Frederick Soddy came up with the term
change in the layout of the periodic table.
"isotope" to explain the unintentional
breakdown of radioactive elements.
• 1903 Hantaro Nagaoka proposed an atomic
model called the Saturnian Model to describe
the structure of an atom with flat rings of
electrons revolving around a positively
charged particle.
• 1904 Richard Abegg found that inert gases
have a “stable electron configuration” which
lead to their chemical inactivity.
• 1906 Hans Geiger invented a device that
could detect alpha particles.
• 1914 H.G.J. Moseley discovered that the
number of protons in an element determines
its atomic number.
• 1919 Francis William Aston used a mass
spectrograph to identify 212 isotopes.
• 1922 Niels Bohr proposed an atomic
structure theory that stated the outer orbit of
an atom could hold more electrons than the
inner orbit.
• 1923 Louis de Broglie proposed that
electrons have a wave/particle duality.
• 1929 Cockcroft / Walton created the first
nuclear reaction, producing alpha particles
• 1930 Paul Dirac proposed the existence of
anti-particles.
• 1932 James Chadwick using alpha particles
discovered a neutral atomic particle with a
mass close to a proton. Thus was discovered
the neutron.