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400 BCE
Democritus
Democritus was a famous scientist who lived in Greece from about 470 to 380 B.C. He started the idea of atoms. His idea was that if any substance was constantly divided into smaller parts eventually it would stop being able to be divided. He named these particles atoms meaning "uncuttable." A fun fact about him is that he was a very happy, fun person and even had the nickname "laughing philosopher." -
John Dalton
John Dalton is a famous scientist who was born in England and lived from 1766 to 1844. He became the first scientist to realize that all atoms differed in size and weight. He also wrote many things explaining the behavior of atoms in terms of the measurement of weight. Dalton always loved gases so he looked back at Democritus to see what made up those gases leading him to his discovery. Another very interesting thing about John is that he discovered color blindness as well. -
J.J. Thomson
J.J. Thompson was an English physicist who lived from 1856-1940. J.J. was the man who discovered the negatively charged particles and named them electrons. While doing an experiment with rays and a vacuum, Thompson realized that the rays bounced back showing that there are small particles in an atom. He initially called these corpuscles although they are now known as electrons. A fun fact about Thompson is that he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906. His son also won this award years later. -
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford is a famous physicist from New Zealand who lived from 1871-1937. Ernest discovered the nucleus in an atom and protons( positively-charged particles) in an atom. Ernest did many experiments to lead him to his discoveries but perhaps his most famous is when he shot a beam of particles at thin gold foil. That experiment made him realize that some of the particles were contained in a nucleus. Ernest also owned the nickname "crocodile" because of his constant urge for looking ahead. -
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr is a famous physicist from Denmark who lived from 1885-1962. Niels is famous for developing the Bohr atomic model which goes with every element. It is a diagram with 3 circles, each one inside the other. Each proton, neutron, electron, and the nucleus is shown in the diagram. The model was also used to show how the particles moved and jumped from each level to another. One of Niels' sons, Aage was also a famous physicist. -
Erwin Schrodinger and Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg(Austria) and Erwin Schrodinger(Germany) were famous physicists who lived in the early-mid 20th century. The two men are famous for the wave model. The wave model is a model showing how electrons move like a wave of energy. This model was developed by Schrodinger. Heisenberg used his matrices as an answer to how particles were charged while Schrodinger had his wave model. Using both men's theories, they found their conclusion. Both of these men went on to win Nobel Prizes.
