The history of the atom

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Shafaq Zahid

The history of the atom

Over the span of hundreds of years science has advanced tremendously improving our understanding of what makes up the world we live in. The atom is one of sciences important findings and has had a changing history of new discoveries, always altering the way we see things.

In the early 1800s a man called John Dalton made an atomic theory with predictions about atoms. He stated that atoms are tiny particles that make up elements and that they are indivisible. We now know that there are in fact smaller particles inside the atom, but at this stage it was assumed that the atom was the smallest. He also said that all atoms of a given element are the same and atoms of one element are different from those in every other element. This meant that every different element had its own unique type of atoms. (Dalton also developed the first table of atomic masses)

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As the years went on a scientist called JJ Thomson discovered the electron by using cathode ray tubes. This discovery proved that there was an even smaller particle inside the atom itself, disproving one of Dalton’s theories and improving our understanding about elements and atoms. JJ Thomson created the famous plum pudding atom model which shows an atom made up of negative electrons moving about in a ‘sea’ of positive charge, thus making the atom neutral with no overall charge. His discovery of the electron advanced atomic theories massively.

In 1909 the scientist, Ernest Rutherford conducted an experiment in which ...

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Mark: 3/5 This essay is strong when reporting experimental findings but the theme of the essay is lost. The paragraphs do not link with the topic, and the conclusion is factually inaccurate. Some sentence constructions are poor and with further amendments this essay could reach 4/5. In order to reach 5/5 this essay would need to have significantly more detail. The idea of the atom did not start with John Dalton, so it would have been nice to have a little bit more background there.