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Jul 13, 1000
Democritus - 430 BC
Early Greek philospher. Helped come up with the Atomic Theory of the Universe - said that atoms flying around combine to create new substances. In other words, everything is made up of atoms. Sometimes referred to as "The Father of Modern Chemistry." -
Evangelista Torricelli
Studied air pressure. Helped develop first barometer. -
Robert Boyle
First scientist to perform controlled experiments. Developed a gas law named after himself that explained how pressure and volume are inversely related to one another. -
Joseph Priestley
Discovered Oxygen and described combustion reactions (why and how things burn). -
Jacques Charles
Developed gas law (Charles Law) which describes how gases tend to expand when heated. Flew the first balloon filled with Hydrogen gas (instead of hot air). -
John Dalton
Developed Law of Partial Pressures. Best known for developing the Modern Atomic Theory of Matter; 5 points make up the theory. -
Joseph Louis Gay_Lussac
Came up with Gay-Lussac's Law - gases at constant temperature and pressure combine in simple numerical proportions by volume, and the resulting product or products—if gases—also bear a simple proportion by volume to the volumes of the reactants. -
Michael Faraday
Invented electric motor. -
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen
Invented the bunsen burner. -
Amedeo Avogadro
Created a principle that explained if you have equal volume, equal pressure, and equal temperature, you will have equal number of gas particles in 2 containers. There is also an important number in chemistry nade after him that tells us the number of atoms/molecules in 1 mole of a substance [known as Avogadro's number]. -
Dmitri Mendeleev
Arranged the first periodic table according to masses. -
William Ramsay
Discovered most of the noble gas family. -
Marie Curie
First woman to win Nobel Prize. Studied uranium and discovered many radioactive elements such as radium. -
JJ Thomson
Best known for his discovery of the electron. He used a cathode ray tube to aid in this discovery. He also is responsible for discovering isotopes and the mass spectrometer (an instrument used to separate out gas ions). -
Fritz Haber
Developed an efficient process for production of ammonia used in fertilizers. This idea was also used to produce a poisonous gas during world wars. -
Ernest Rutherford
Discovered that the nucleus is a small, dense center to every atom. He used the gold foil experiment to help him discover the nucleus. Also studied radioactive half-life and proved that arioactivity involved the transmutation (transformation) of 1 element to another. -
Niels Bohr
Built off Rutherford's discovery. Gave us the "Bohr Model" of an atom - says electrons orbit around the nucleus of an atom similar to how the planets orbit around the sun. -
Henry Moseley
Arranged the periodic table as we see it today; based on atomic numbers. -
Gilbert Newton Lewis
Studied acids and bases and explained chemical bonding. -
James Chadwick
Discovered the neutron and proved it had no charge (neutral). -
Erwin Schrodinger
Developed equation describing the wavelike behaviors of electrons. -
Robert Oppenheimer
Father of the Atomic Bomb -
Rosalind Franklin
Worked on X-ray diffraction images of DNA which eventually led to the discovery of DNA double helix. Her work is what was used by Watson and Crick to get the structure of DNA published.
