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How Did Dalton Contribute To The Evolution Of Atom

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How Did Dalton Contribute To The Evolution Of Atom
There was a huge evolution as to understanding what an atom was and there were many scientists who helped to make this happen. The first scientist was Democritus, he lived from 460 BC to 370 BC. His main theories were that everything is made up of atoms, atoms cannot be divided, and atoms are small and solid particles. He named the atom “atomos” it was greek word and it means “not able to be divided.” The next scientist who worked with atoms was John Dalton, he lived from 1766 to 1844. His main theories were that elements combine in certain proportions based on mass to form compounds, each element has a different atom and a different atomic weight, all atoms of the same element are perfectly identical, and atoms cannot be created or destroyed in chemical reactions. He also had his own …show more content…
However, after Dalton’s theory was released there was new information that did not fit with his theory. There was a new scientist, J.J. Thomson, who lived from 1856 to 1940, and he did not agree with Dalton’s theory. Thomson discovered that there are particles inside the atom and therefore atoms could be divided into even smaller parts. He also discovered that atoms have a much larger mass than electrons. Thomson then proposed the model of the atom that was called the plum-pudding model, which was a dessert that was popular in his time. Most people to call it the chocolate chip ice-cream model, the chocolate chips represent electrons, and the ice-cream represents the rest of the atom. The next scientist that followed Thomson was actually his former student named Ernest Rutherford and he decided to test Thomson’s theory. He performed an experiment to study the parts of an atom, he performed this experiment to see if atoms have different parts or if they are all the same throughout the whole atom. The experiment was called the Gold-Foil

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