PROFESSOR CEYER: Our goals for today

are to look at the historical development of Atomic Theory

from way back in 500 BC to about 100 years ago.
And what we're going to see, is that by the end
of the 19th century it was generally
believed that the atom is the most basic constituent
of matter and that the atom is indivisible.
But we're also going to get a look at the observations that
were being made at that time that
signaled that a momentous revolution was
about to take place.
So in order for us to make progress
in our study of chemistry, we have
to take a few steps back and look
at the ancient Greek philosophers.
Because they are known to have pondered whether matter could
be divided endlessly into smaller and smaller pieces,
or whether there was a point at which matter
could not be divided any further.
For example, Aristotle-- who lived in the 4th century BC--
he believed that matter was infinitely divisible.
You could chop it up into smaller and smaller bits ad
infinitum.
And that kind of viewpoint was called the Continuum Theory
of Matter.
But there was a minority opinion,
and that was heralded by Democritus.
Democritus-- who is about a generation or two older than
Aristotle--
but Democritus believe that matter
was composed of these discrete very, very small particles.
And that these particles were not divisible.
In Greek he called these particles atomos.
Where in Greek the syllable "a" here, means not.
And 'tomos' means divisible--
not divisible.
So you can see from where our English word atom is derived.
But of course, in the fourth, fifth century BC,
there was no evidence one way or the other
for either of these viewpoints.
But these philosophers were essentially
the scientists of the day.
They were seeking reality.
They were seeking the truth.
But of course, their method was a speculative one as opposed
to an observational means or method of seeking that truth.
Well for whatever reason, it was Aristotle's view
of the Continuum Theory of Matter that prevailed
for the next 2000 years.
And on this slide is a picture of a painting
that Raphael did in 1509 on the wall of the Vatican.
And it depicts Aristotle here, in the center holding court,
discussing with his philosopher peers of the day
the important issues such as the Continuum Theory of Matter.
However, by the 17th century there
began to be this accumulation of observations
that seemed to indicate that maybe this Continuum
Theory of Matter wasn't quite correct.
So for example, there was the observations of Robert Boyle.
Robert Boyle wrote a treatise entitled, The Skeptical
Chymist.
And in it, he described his measurements of PV
equaling a constant.
That is, he had some pressure of gas
in some container with some volume.
And whatever combination of pressure or volume he had,
the product of the pressure and the volume
was always a constant.
In addition, Robert Boyle invoked the idea of elements.
And, that elements could combine to form compounds or molecules.
Now Robert Boyle did not use exactly those words.
And instead, he called compounds or molecules
perfectly mixed bodies.
And then there was Joseph Priestley.
And guess what occupation he was?
Yes, he was a priest.
And what Joseph Priestly did, is that he
took dephlogisticated air and reacted it with materials.
Or in other words, he burned stuff.
And what he found is that materials burn more vigorously
in dephlogisticated air than they did
in air that you and I breathe.
And of course today, we know that this dephlogisticated air
is essentially pure oxygen that he
got from taking mercuric oxide and heating it up,
letting the oxygen evolve and leaving the mercury in the pot.
But then there was Lavoisier.
And Lavoisier took the same experiments
that Joseph Priestley did, but he carried
them out more quantitatively.
That is, Lavoisier measured
the mass of the dephlogisticated air and the material
before the burning event.
And he measured the mass of the char and the remaining
dephlogisticated air after the burning event.
And he found that those two masses were equal.
And whenever he did it, He found there to be the case.
And so those observations became known as the Law
of the Conservation of Mass.
And therefore, he was really the first to realize
that you could write down a chemical equation
in an analogous way that you write down
an algebraic equation.
That is, you can put an equal sign between the reactants
and the products.
And Lavoisier, he also went and isolated and characterized
17 different metals and nine different non-metals
and assembled them in the first periodic table that we know of.
Well most unfortunately, Lavoisier was also an advisor
to the French monarchy.
And the judge who presided at his trial,
proclaimed The Republic has no use for savants.
While Lagrange-- who was an eminent mathematician
at the time and the inventor of variational calculus--
he said, "It took but a moment to cut off that head,
though 100 years will be required
to produce another like it."
And then there was J.L. Proust.
And Proust, he also was a Frenchman.
But he was a little more politically savvy.
And so he understood the political climate of France
at that time.
And so he hightailed it out of there to Madrid
where he lived a long and healthy life.
But what Proust did, is that when he carried out reactions,
he found that the elements combined always
in definite proportions by weight.
And whatever combination of elements he had,
they always combined in definite proportions by weight.
And that became known as the Law of Definite Proportions.