Paste your essay in here..Throughout the 2000+ year history of Atomic theory, there have been multiple scientists involved with creating our understanding of the Atom that we know today. However some can be credited more than others for the overall impact and influence of their contribution. Among the several other scientists and philosophers that have contributed to the modern Atomic Theory we know today, John Dalton can be credited with the most impactful ideas of atomic theory. Dalton provided the first insight to atomic theory since the “Death of Chemistry” that lasted around 2000 years. Without Dalton’s ideas, we might only know just as much about the atom as we did in 200 B.C. Dalton also theorized that “The proportions of elements in those chemical compounds can be expressed in small whole number ratios” Which in a sense would mean that he theorized the presence of Protons and Electrons in Atoms.
Atomic theory is nothing new, in fact several other scientists and philosophers ranging more than 2000 years ago have been involved in building up the ideas and belief that we have today about atomic theory. Democritus a philosopher from ancient Greece question whether things could be broken down into point where he couldn’t be broken down anymore he coined the term Atomos, which translates to not to be cut, in Latin. The first chemist to provide insight on the atomic theory was John Dalton in 1803. John Dalton developed the first atomic theory since the death of chemistry 2000 years before. John Dalton the English chemist performed multiple experiments contributing to the acceptance of the idea of atoms. Dalton believed that all matter was made up of these atoms, but atoms are too small to see and indestructible. Dalton also theorized that any atoms within a given element are identical but two different element’s atoms are not the same in 1897 English scientist J.J. Thompson provided the first hint that an atom is made of even smaller pieces these pieces being particles in those particles being positively charged or negatively charged his proposed atom model is sometimes referred to as the plum pudding model. His theory was that atoms are made of a positively charged substance with electrons scattered throughout the atom much like chocolate chips and a chocolate chip cookie. In the year 1908, a physicist from New Zealand, Ernest Rutherford performed an experiment firing positively charged particles that we now know as protons at a gold foil. Because of this experiment, he proved that Atoms are not made of a positive substance with negatively charged particles throughout. Rutherford developed the idea of a nucleus which is small dents and positively charged at the center of the atom. Rutherford even propose the fit the theory that well the nucleus is tiny compared to the rest of the atom, the atom is mostly open space anyways. His theory on the presence of electrons is that they are scattered far away from the nucleus. In the year 1913, Danish scientist, Niels Bohr, made improvements to the atomic model he built on Rutherford’s concept of the nucleus and agreed that most of the mass of the Atom is in the nucleus. However he theorized that electrons move around the nucleus in Orbits much like the planets in the solar system. These orbits being placed at certain distances from the nucleus. Erwin Schrodinger, Louis de Brogile and many other scientists from the 20th century all helped develop the idea that electrons don’t orbit around the nucleus in planet like orbits. Instead these electrons move around the nucleus billions of times per second in an electron cloud. The theorized that in the cloud electrons don’t move in a random pattern instead The electrons movement within the cloud is dependent upon how much energy the electron contains. Obviously all of these scientists had an important part in the development of the Atomic Theory, however among these scientists, John Dalton has contributed the most to our understanding of Atomic Theory.
Due to Dalton’s belief that all atoms of a given element are identical, and all atoms of another element are different,which will later turn into the beginnings of our theory of Neutrons, Electrons and Protons. Dalton’s idea of all atoms within specific elements being different from all others is very similar to the system of Protons, Neutrons and Electrons. In a way Dalton was right about all atoms within an element being no two alike to a different element, except on an even smaller scale. From Dalton’s idea, we can connect it to how no two elements have the same atomic mass, atomic symbol, or atomic number/ number of protons. And so Dalton theorized the idea that Elements are all distinctly different which we now know as true because of a specific number of protons and electrons complementary to each element according to atomic mass and charge.
As the third part of his theory, Dalton theorized that “compounds are combinations of two or more different types of atoms”(Khan Academy). Dalton was not exact by his statement of “two or more different types of atoms” however he did have the first general idea of how chemical compounds worked and in fact was not far off from the actual composition of a compound. As we have learned before, chemical compounds are combinations of two or more elements that fall into two main categories, ionic and covalent, these categorizations depending on whether an element has 2 metals (ionic) or one metal and one non metal (covalent). Dalton essentially defined one of chemistry’s main ideas, being, chemical compounds. And while one can argue was not exact in his definition, his theory that compounds are made of a combination of 2 or more atoms, was groundbreaking for his time, especially being the first scientist to build on the atomic theory after the death of chemistry. So generalizing the idea of the makeup of a chemical compound, and basically having to start from scratch on atomic theory, Dalton made a very important development on atomic theory even just with that.
The timeline of the development of Atomic theory stretches over 2000 years and includes input from several philosophers and scientists throughout all those years. However, among the number of scientists that provided valuable ideas to the Atomic Theory we know today, John Dalton is definitely the most important to contribute. Dalton built the foundation for very important pieces of atomic theory and chemistry as a whole like, the beginnings of theory of the existence of Protons, Neutrons and electrons, as well as the composition of chemical compounds. Among all of the Scientists and Philosophers involved in constructing the atomic theory we know today, John Dalton can be credited with making the most important developments.