Democritus lived in Ionia, Greece around 430 BCE. He was an Ancient Greek philosopher and he stated that the atom is the smallest particle of an element. He said, " Matter is formed of small pieces that could not be cut into smaller parts." The greek word for atom is atomos, which means uncuttable. He didn't actually prove that atoms cannot be cut up into smaller particles by experimenting, but he just thought about it. No one questioned Democritus and therefore no one tried to find out more about atoms or find out if there is something smaller than an atom. The next scientist to have studied atoms was John Dalton, an english chemist, meteorologist, and physicist. Dalton discovered more information about atoms during the early 1800's. He created a model of the atom called the "Pool Ball/ Grape" model. Dalton also had some ideas about atoms. One idea was that all elements are composed of atoms that can't be divided. Another idea was that all atoms of the same element are exactly alike and have the same mass. Another idea was that an atom of one element cannot be changed into an atom of a different element. Atoms also cannot be created or destroyed, just rearranged. One other idea was that every compound is composed of atoms of different elements, combined in a specific ratio. Democritus and Dalton both helped very much to discover information about atoms.
Cites:
-Wikipedia
-Notes from class
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