History of Dalton’s Atomic Theory

Although the concept of the atom dates back to the ideas of Democritus, the English
meteorologist and chemist John Dalton formulated the first modern description of it as the
fundamental building block of chemical structures. Dalton developed the law of multiple
proportions (first presented in 1803) by studying and expanding upon the works of Antoine
Lavoisier and Joseph Proust.

Proust had studied tin oxides and found that their masses were either 88.1% tin and 11.9%
oxygen or 78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen (these were tin(II) oxide and tin dioxide respectively).
Dalton noted from these percentages that 100g of tin will combine either with 13.5g or 27g of
oxygen; 13.5 and 27 form a ratio of 1:2. Dalton found an atomic theory of matter could elegantly
explain this common pattern in chemistry – in the case of Proust’s tin oxides, one tin atom will
combine with either one or two oxygen atoms.

Dalton also believed atomic theory could explain why water absorbed different gases in different
proportions: for example, he found that water absorbed carbon dioxide far better than it absorbed
nitrogen. Dalton hypothesized this was due to the differences in the mass and complexity of the
gases’ respective particles. Indeed, carbon dioxide molecules (CO2) are heavier and larger than
nitrogen molecules (N2).

Dalton proposed that each chemical element is composed of atoms of a single, unique type, and
though they cannot be altered or destroyed by chemical means, they can combine to form more
complex structures (chemical compounds). Since Dalton reached his conclusions by
experimentation and examination of the results in an empirical fashion, this marked the first truly
scientific theory of the atom

Thomson Atomic Theory

Thomson's discovery of the electron completely changed the way people viewed atoms. Up until
the end of the 19th century, atoms were thought to be tiny solid spheres. In 1903, Thomson
proposed a model of the atom consisting of positive and negative charges, present in equal
amounts so that an atom would be electrically neutral. He proposed the atom was a sphere, but
the positive and negative charges were embedded within it. Thomson's model came to be called
the "plum pudding model" or "chocolate chip cookie model". Modern scientists understand
atoms consist of a nucleus of positively-charged protons and neutral neutrons, with negatively-
charged electrons orbiting the nucleus. Yet, Thomson's model is important because it introduced
the notion that an atom consisted of charged particles.

Interesting Facts About J.J. Thomson

 Prior to Thomson's discovery of electrons, scientists believed the atom was the smallest
fundamental unit of matter.
 Thomson called the particle he discovered 'corpuscles' rather than electrons.
  Thomson's master's work, Treatise on the motion of vortex rings, provides a
mathematical description of William Thomson's vortex theory of atoms. He was awarded
the Adams Prize in 1884.
 Thomson discovered the natural radioactivity of potassium in 1905.
 In 1906, Thomson demonstrated a hydrogen atom had only a single electron.
 Thomson's father intended for J.J. to be an engineer, but the family did not have the funds
to support the apprenticeship. So, Joseph John attended Owens College in Manchester,
and then Trinity College in Cambridge, where he became a mathematical physicist. 
 In 1890, Thomson married one of his students, Rose Elisabeth Paget. They had a son and
a daughter. The son, Sir George Paget Thomson, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in
1937.
 Thomson also investigated the nature of positively-charged particles. These experiments
led to the development of the mass spectrograph.

 Thomson was closely aligned with chemists of the time. His atomic theory helped explain
atomic bonding and the structure of molecules. Thomson published an important
monograph in 1913 urging the use of the mass spectrograph in chemical analysis.
 Many consider J.J. Thomson's greatest contribution to science to be his role as a teacher.
Seven of his research assistants, as well as his own son, went on to win the Nobel Prize in
Physics. One of his best-known students was Ernest Rutherford, who succeeded
Thomson as Cavendish Professor of Physics

Rutherford's Planetary Model

of the Atom

By 1911 the components of the atom had been discovered. The atom consisted of subatomic
particles called protons and electrons. However, it was not clear how these protons and electrons
were arranged within the atom. J.J. Thomson suggested the"plum pudding" model. In this model
the electrons and protons are uniformly mixed throughout the atom:

 Rutherford tested Thomson's hypothesis by devising his "gold foil" experiment. Rutherford
reasoned that if Thomson's model was correct then the mass of the atom was spread out
throughout the atom. Then, if he shot high velocity alpha particles (helium nuclei) at an atom
then there would be very little to deflect the alpha particles. He decided to test this with a thin
film of gold atoms. As expected, most alpha particles went right through the gold foil but to his
amazement a few alpha particles rebounded almost directly backwards.

 These deflections were not consistent with Thomson's model. Rutherford was forced to discard
the Plum Pudding model and reasoned that the only way the alpha particles could be deflected
backwards was if most of the mass in an atom was concentrated in a nucleus. He thus developed
the planetary model of the atom which put all the protons in the nucleus and the electrons orbited
around the nucleus like planets around the sun.

 
Bohr model
In atomic physics, the Rutherford–Bohr model or Bohr model or Bohr diagram, presented
by Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford in 1913, is a system consisting of a small, dense nucleus
surrounded by revolving electrons —similar to the structure of the Solar System, but with
attraction provided by electrostatic forces rather than gravity. After the cubic model(1902),
the plum-pudding model (1904), the Saturnian model (1904), and the Rutherford model (1911)
came the Rutherford–Bohr model or just Bohr model for short (1913). The improvement to the
Rutherford model is mostly a quantum physical interpretation of it. The model's key success lay
in explaining the Rydberg formula for the spectral emission lines of atomic hydrogen. While the
Rydberg formula had been known experimentally, it did not gain a theoretical underpinning until
the Bohr model was introduced. Not only did the Bohr model explain the reason for the structure
of the Rydberg formula, it also provided a justification for its empirical results in terms of
fundamental physical constants.
The Bohr model is a relatively primitive model of the hydrogen atom, compared to the valence
shell atom model. As a theory, it can be derived as a first-order approximation of the hydrogen
atom using the broader and much more accurate quantum mechanics and thus may be considered
to be an obsolete scientific theory. However, because of its simplicity, and its correct results for
selected systems (see below for application), the Bohr model is still commonly taught to
introduce students to quantum mechanics or energy level diagrams before moving on to the more
accurate, but more complex, valence shell atom. A related model was originally proposed
by Arthur Erich Haas in 1910 but was rejected. The quantum theory of the period
between Planck's discovery of the quantum (1900) and the advent of a mature quantum
mechanics (1925) is often referred to as the old quantum theory.

Origin[edit]

Bohr model showing maximum electrons per shell with shells labeled in X-ray notation
In the early 20th century, experiments by Ernest Rutherford established that atoms consisted of a
diffuse cloud of negatively charged electrons surrounding a small, dense, positively
charged nucleus.[2] Given this experimental data, Rutherford naturally considered a planetary-
model atom, the Rutherford model of 1911 – electrons orbiting a solar nucleus – however, said
planetary-model atom has a technical difficulty. The laws of classical mechanics (i.e. the Larmor
formula), predict that the electron will release electromagnetic radiationwhile orbiting a nucleus.
Because the electron would lose energy, it would rapidly spiral inwards, collapsing into the
nucleus on a timescale of around 16 picoseconds.[3] This atom model is disastrous, because it
predicts that all atoms are unstable.[4]
Also, as the electron spirals inward, the emission would rapidly increase in frequency as the orbit
got smaller and faster. This would produce a continuous smear, in frequency, of electromagnetic
radiation. However, late 19th century experiments with electric discharges have shown that
atoms will only emit light (that is, electromagnetic radiation) at certain discrete frequencies.
To overcome this hard difficulty, Niels Bohr proposed, in 1913, what is now called the Bohr
model of the atom. He put forward these three postulates that sum up most of the model:
Modern Atomic Theory: Models

In 1913, Neils Bohr, a student of Rutherford's, developed a new model of the atom. He
proposed that electrons are arranged in concentric circular orbits
around the nucleus. This model is patterned on the solar system Bohr model
and is known as the planetary model. The Bohr model can be
summarized by the following four principles:

1. Electrons occupy only certain orbits around the nucleus. Those orbits are stable
and are called "stationary" orbits.
2. Each orbit has an energy associated with it. The orbit nearest the nucleus
has an energy of E1, the next orbit E2, etc.
3. Energy is absorbed when an electron jumps from a lower orbit to a higher
one and energy is emitted when an electron falls from a higher orbit to a lower
orbit.
4. The energy and frequency of light emitted or absorbed can be calculated
by using the difference between the two orbital energies.

In 1926 Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist, took the Bohr atom model one step
further. Schrödinger used mathematical equations to describe the likelihood of finding
an electron in a certain position. This atomic model is known as the quantum
mechanical model of the atom. Unlike the
Bohr model, the quantum mechanical Quantum mechanical model
model does not define the exact path of
an electron, but rather, predicts the odds
of the location of the electron. This model can be portrayed as a nucleus surrounded by
an electron cloud. Where the cloud is most dense, the probability of finding the electron
is greatest, and conversely, the electron is less likely to be in a less dense area of the
cloud. Thus, this model introduced the concept of sub-energy levels.

Until 1932, the atom was believed to be composed of a positively charged nucleus
surrounded by negatively charged electrons. In 1932, James Chadwick bombarded
beryllium atoms with alpha particles. An unknown radiation was produced. Chadwick
interpreted this radiation as being composed of particles with a neutral electrical charge
and the approximate mass of a proton. This particle became known as the neutron.
With the discovery of the neutron, an adequate model of the atom became available to
chemists.

Since 1932, through continued experimentation, many additional particles have been
discovered in the atom. Also, new elements have been created by bombarding existing
nuclei with various subatomic particles. The atomic theory has been further enhanced
by the concept that protons and neutrons are made of even smaller units called quarks.
The quarks themselves are in turn made of vibrating strings of energy. The theory of the
composition of the atom continues to be an ongoing and exciting adventure.