Anahi Pineda

Science – comparative table

Atom and theories

Democratius thought that the atom was just a one little

sphere.
Also that in between atoms, there was empty space.
Differences in atomic shape and size determined the
various properties of matter.

John Dalton thought that all elements consist of atoms that

cannot be divided.

All atoms of the same element are exactly alike and have the
same mass.

Atoms of different alements are different and have different

masses

Thomson, who discovered the electron in 1897, proposed

the plum pudding model of the atom in 1904 before the
discovery of the atomic nucleus in order to include the
electron in the atomic model.
In Thomson’s model, the atom is composed of electrons
surrounded by a soup of positive charge to balance the
electrons’ negative charges, like negatively charged
“plums” surrounded by positively charged “pudding”.

Rutherford's atomic model is the model which described the

atom as a tiny, dense, positively charged core called a
nucleus, in which nearly all the mass is concentrated, around
which the light, negative constituents, called electrons,
circulate at some distance, much like planets revolving
around the Sun.

The Bohr model of the atom, a radical departure from earlier,

classical descriptions, was the first that incorporated quantum
theory and was the predecessor of wholly quantum-
mechanical models. The Bohr model and all of its successors
describe the properties of atomic electrons in terms of a set of
allowed (possible) values. Atoms absorb or emit radiation only
when the electrons abruptly jump between allowed, or stationary,
states.