Basic With History of the Atom – Atom Discovery

Atom Discovery ”Atomos”

History of the atom

The word Atom mean ” indivisible” which come from the old Greek ”Atomos”, a word created by ”Leucipe” (460-370 B.C) who claim that all the matter surrounding us is made of tiny particle, so little that they cannot be separated nor seen with the eye.

Democritus (460-370 B.C) his disciple said some years later that not only the matter is made of tiny particle can combine togheter and that there is ”space” between them. They cannot be separated but still they are.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C) and Empedoclus (490-435 B.C), even if they were great thinkers at the time, did not approve the theory started by Leucippus and followed by his disciple Democritus. Instead, they believed that matter was made of four basic elements : Water, Wind, Earth, Fire, and the different combination of them can create any substance, that we are made of these element, we, human being and animals too, under the action of the four fundamental which are  Hot, Dry, Wet and Cold.

John Dalton (1766-1844) came with the idea, after numerous observation and experience, that there is two distinct type of elements composing the matter or any substance : elements and compounds.

Elements are made of the same (single or more) atoms while Compounds are made of different atoms (at least two) sticking togheter by bond. Compounds are either Monoatomic (alone, Ne, Na) or Diatomic (by set of two, Ne2, Cl2, O2). The elements of the same type have the same mass while, the others elements have a different mass.

I tried to the best of my actual english vocabulary to explain everything correctly. Thank you very much for reading my article and i will be back with more food for the brain, i hope that you liked it.

Jordan Landao