Chapter 4

Atomic Structure

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 When did the Idea of an Atom Come
about?
• The Greek Philosophers tried to described an atom.

• Democritus, in 400 B.C., first suggested the existence of

indivisible, indestructible atoms, called Atomos.
• Democritus hypothesized that if you divide matter into
smaller and smaller pieces, eventually you will end up with
tiny, indestructible pieces called Atoms.
• His ideas were untested, and rejected. There were few
other philosophers who tried to explain an atom but all
were rejected.

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What was the Next Important Discovery?
John Dalton

• The next important discovery was made in the early

1800’s by John Dalton, who was an English teacher.

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 What was the Next Important Discovery?
John Dalton
• He came up with the following 2 Laws:
• Law of Definite Composition: the % by mass of an element
in a compound is always the same.
• i.e. the mass ratio of carbon to oxygen in Carbon dioxide
(CO2) is always the same … 1 carbon to 2 oxygen atoms.
• Law of Conservation of Mass: In chemical reactions, mass
is conserved and is not created nor destroyed.

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 Dalton’s Atomic Theory
1. An element is composed of tiny,
indestructible, indivisible particles called
atoms.
2. All atoms of the same element are identical,
and have the same properties.
3. Atoms of different elements combine to form
compounds.
4. Compounds contain atoms in small whole
number ratios.
5. Atoms can combine in more than one ratio to
form different compounds, or simply, chemical
reactions involve the rearrangement of atoms.
No new atoms are created or destroyed.
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 Just How Small Is an Atom?
• Think of cutting a piece of lead into smaller and smaller
pieces
• How far can it be cut?
• An atom is the smallest particle of an element that
retains the properties of that element
• Atoms are very small;
• You would need to line up 100,000,000 copper atoms to
measure 1 cm.

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Just How Small Is an Atom?
Atoms are observable with proper instrument, a Scanning
Tunneling Microscope (STM):

Gold Atoms

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 The Structure of the Atom
• The industrial revolution created the next group of people
– scientists.
• Work done by J.J. Thomson, an English physicist in 1897,
proved that atoms had pieces called electrons.
• He made a piece of equipment called a cathode ray tube.
• Electrodes were hooked up to a high-voltage source,
creating an anode (positively charged), and the cathode
(negatively charged).
• A glowing beam flowed from the negative disk, to the
positive disk, called the cathode ray.

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 Thomson’s Experiment

Voltage source
- +

Vacuum tube

Metal Disks
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 Thomson’s Experiment

Voltage source
- +

• Passing an electric current makes a beam

appear to move from the negative to the
positive end
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 Thomson’s Experiment

Voltage source

++

-
-
By adding an electric field he found that the moving
pieces were attracted to the positive charge, and were
therefore negative … opposites attract. Therefore the
electron is negatively charged.
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 Thomson’s Plum Pudding Model

+
+
+ +
+
+
+ +
+

In the Plum Pudding Model:

1. Electrons are suspended in a positively charged electric
field
2. A lot of empty space in the atom to separate the electrons

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 After Thompson …

• Milliken (An American scientist in 1911) determined the

mass to charge ratio of an electron.
• E. Goldstein discovered that a proton is a positively
charged subatomic particle that is heavier than the
electron
• In 1932, James Chadwick confirmed that the neutron has
no charge but the same mass as a proton

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 Properties of Subatomic Particles

Particle Symbol Relative Relative Mass

Charge (mass of P+ = 1)

Electron e- 1- 1/1840

Proton p+ 1+ 1

Neutron N0 0 1

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 Rutherford and Radioactivity (1908)

There are three types of radiation:

1. Alpha Particles (a): composed of Helium nuclei – –

stopped by paper, skin.
2. Beta Particles (b): composed of negatively charged
electrons, stopped
0 by foil, thick clothes
3. Gamma rays (g): composed of high energy radiation
– no charge, no mass stopped by thick concrete. Size:
a>b>g

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 Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment
• Ernest Rutherford -English physicist. (1910)
• Believed in the plum pudding model of the
atom.
• He designed an experiment to test the Plum
Pudding Model.
• Rutherford used radioactivity, and shot the
positively charged alpha particles at a gold foil
which was a few atoms thick.

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Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment

Fluorescent
Lead Uranium Screen
block

Gold Foil

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 Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment
● If the Plum Pudding model of the atom was correct, most a-particles
should pass through un-deflected.

+
+ +
+
+ +
+ +

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Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment

What he expected ...

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Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment

What he got …

- Over 98% of the particles

went straight through.
- 2% got deflected

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 Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment
Rutherford explained …
• Since the atom is largely empty space, most of the a-particles
passed through the foil.

• The a-particles that

deflected and bounced
backwards did so after
nearing or striking the
nucleus.
• The Atomic Nucleus
contains the atom’s
protons, and it is located
at the center of the atom.

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 Planetary Model (Neils Bohr)

• Neil’s Bohr explained:

• – just like the planets revolve around
the sun the electrons revolve around
the nucleus.
• - The electrons revolve around the
nucleus on a fixed path – called the
orbitals.

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 Atomic Notation
• Atomic Notation represents the number of protons and
neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.
• The Atomic Number, Z, represents the number of
protons in the nucleus.
• The Atomic Number, Z, also represents the number of
electrons in a neutral atom.
• The Mass Number, A, represents the total number of
protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.

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 Atomic Notation

• The Atomic Number is 11:

• # p+ = 11 protons, # e- = 11 electrons

• The Mass Number is 23:

• # n0 = 23 – 11 = 12 neutrons

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 Atomic Notation
• Find the
• number of protons 19
•
•
number of neutrons
number of electrons 9 F
• Atomic number
• Mass Number

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 Atomic Notation

• Find the
80
•
•
number of protons
number of neutrons 35 Br
• number of electrons
• Atomic number
• Mass Number

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 Isotopes

• Dalton was wrong. Atoms of the same element

can have different numbers of neutrons.
• These atoms of the same element would have
different mass numbers.
• These “cousins” of the same element are called
isotopes.
• Ex: Glass beakers – same material but different
coins put in – diff. neutrons

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 Isotopes
Atoms of the same element with different
number of neutrons in the nucleus are called
isotopes.
• Isotopes have the same atomic number (same
element) but different mass numbers.
• All atoms of the same element have the same
number of protons.
• Most elements occur naturally with varying
number of neutrons.

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Isotopes

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 Naming Isotopes

• To name an isotope properly, we put the

mass number after the name of the
element.
• carbon- 12
• carbon -14
• uranium-235

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Mathematics of Isotopes

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Calculation Average Atomic mass
% a)Convert to b) Atomic Multiply
abundance decimal mass (a*b)
Cu - 63 69.09 0.6909 62.930 43.4783
Cu - 65 30.91 0.3091 64.928 + 20.069
Av atomic 63.55 amu
mass

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 Isotope Examples

• Magnesium has three isotopes. 78.99%

magnesium 24 with a mass of 23.9850 amu,
10.00% magnesium 25 with a mass of 24.9858
amu, and the rest magnesium 25 with a mass of
25.9826 amu. What is the atomic mass of
magnesium?

• Boron is 20% B-10, and 80% B-11. What is the

Atomic Mass of Boron?

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