Hopkinton High School Library's List: Atomic Model Project

"Chemistry and physics overlap at the level where investigations of the smallest particles of matter are carried out. Appropriately, several of the pioneers in the study of atomic and nuclear structure are more commonly identified as physicists, but the line between a chemist and a physicist at this level is hard to draw, and the Nobel prizes for this kind of work are granted in both categories."

"This article will focus on the efforts of four scientists: Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, Antoine Henri Becquerel, Marie Sklodowska Curie, and Ernest Rutherford. It emphasizes their contributions to the elucidation of radioactivity and the "key" experiments they performed pertaining to their discoveries. The biographies and photographs are adapted from The Health Physics Society Centennial Calendar by permission of the Health Physics Society."

"Physics was a relatively new subject of research in the nineteenth century. As a result there was little funding, and many who wished to explore this area had minimal facilities to do soHowever, around the end of the century, new university laboratories began to open and many discoveries were made in the field of physics. The first such university laboratory for physics teaching and research was set up in the late nineteenth century following the pioneering work of Lord Kelvin in Glasgow.
Subsequently the Cavendish Laboratory was opened in 1874 at Cambridge University. This laboratory witnessed many new discoveries and nurtured some of the most talented physicists. These included J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford."

"Experiments by J.J. Thomson in 1897 led to the discovery of a fundamental building block of matter."

"John Dalton (1766-1844) developed the first useful atomic theory of matter around 1803."

"ARIE SKLODOWSKA CURIE opened up the science of radioactivity."

"To explain the spectral line puzzle, Bohr came up with a radical model of the atom which had electrons orbiting around a nucleus. "

"The most important properties of atomic and molecular structure may be exemplified using a simplified picture of an atom that is called the Bohr Model. This model was proposed by Niels Bohr in 1915; it is not completely correct, but it has many features that are approximately correct and it is sufficient for much of our discussion. The correct theory of the atom is called quantum mechanics; the Bohr Model is an approximation to quantum mechanics that has the virtue of being much simpler. (Here is a more realistic discussion of what atomic orbitals look like in quantum mechanics.) "

"British physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) has created a planetary model of atom exploring a dispersion of a-particles transiting through a thin metal foil. According to this model an atom looks like a tiny planetary system, in which the forces of an electrical attraction operate."