atomic timeline - Timeline

Democritus’ atomic theory posited that all matter is made up small indestructible units he called atoms.

Isaac Newton theorized a mechanical universe with small, solid masses in motion.

Boyle’s law states that at a constant temperature for a fixed mass, the absolute pressure and the volume of a gas are inversely proportional.

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.

laviosier was the first person to make good use of the balance.

Michael Faraday developed the two laws of electrochemistry.

J. Plucker built one of the first cathode-ray tubes.

Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table.

James Clerk Maxwell proposed the theory of electromagnetism and made the connection between light and electromagnetic waves.

G.J. Stoney theorized that electricity was comprised of negative particles he called electrons.

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.

E. Goldstein discovered canal rays, which have a positive charge equal to an electron.

Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays.

Henri Becquerel discovered radiation by studying the effects of x-rays on photographic film.

J.J. Thomson determined the charge to mass ratio of electrons.

Rutherford discovered alpha, beta, and gamma rays in radiation.

Marie Sklodowska Curie discovered radium and polonium and coined the term radioactivity after studying the decay process of uranium and thorium.

Max Planck proposed the idea of quantization to explain how a hot, glowing object emitted light.

Frederick Soddy came up with the term "isotope" to explain the unintentional breakdown of radioactive elements.

Hantaro Nagaoka proposed an atomic model called the Saturnian Model to describe the structure of an atom.

Richard Abegg found that inert gases have a “stable electron configuration.”

Hans Geiger invented a device that could detect alpha particles.

H.G.J. Moseley discovered that the number of protons in an element determines its atomic number.

Francis William Aston used a mass spectrograph to identify 212 isotopes.

Niels Bohr proposed an atomic structure theory that stated the outer orbit of an atom could hold more electrons than the inner orbit.

Louis de Broglie proposed that electrons have a wave/particle duality.

Cockcroft / Walton created the first nuclear reaction, producing alpha particles

Paul Dirac proposed the existence of anti-particles.

James Chadwick discovered neutrons, particles whose mass was close to that of a proton.

Lise Meitner, Hahn, Strassman discovered nuclear fission.

Glenn Seaborg discovered eight transuranium elements.

Enrico Fermi created the first man-made nuclear reactor.