![]() Lavoisier had no explanation for these amazingly consistent results. Water could be broken down to always give exactly two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen. For example, two volumes of hydrogen reacted exactly with one volume of oxygen to produce water. The same more complex substances he called compounds. He found two important factors: (1) the simplest substances, which he called elements, could not be broken down any further, and (2) these elements always reacted with each other in the same proportions. He reacted various substances until they were in their simplest states. His chemical experiments involved very careful weighing of all the chemicals. One of the most famous chemists of the end of the eighteenth century was Antoine Lavoisier (1743 –1794). They even began using the word atom again. By the seventeenth century, some of these chemists began thinking about the reactions they were seeing in terms of smallest parts. AD 1100) onward, many chemical reactions were studied. Aristotle ’s teachings against the idea of Democritus ’s atom were so powerful that the idea of the atom fell out of philosophical fashion for the next 2,000 years.Īlthough atomic theory was abandoned for this long period, scientific experimentation, especially in chemistry, flourished. Aristotle said there were only four elements ( earth, air, fire, water) and that these had some smallest unit that made up all matter. Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers of that time, believed in some kind of “smallest part ” of matter, but did not believe these parts followed Democritus ’s description. In his theory, different objects looked different because of the way the atoms were arranged. ” The atoms Democritus envisioned differed only in shape and size. The word atomos has been changed in modern times to “atom. This tiniest building block that could no longer be cut he named atomos, Greek for “no-cut ” (indivisible). He imagined starting with a large piece of matter and gradually cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces, finally reaching a smallest possible piece. One of these philosophers was named Democritus. If they could see small enough things, they would find that the same “building blocks ” they started with were still there. Still others believed that whatever comprised matter, it must be something that could not be destroyed but only recombined into new forms. Others believed that matter was made entirely of fire in ever-changing forms. Some said everything was made of water, which comes in three forms (solid ice, liquid water, and gaseous steam). Historyīeginning in about 600 BC, many Greek philosophers struggled to understand the nature of matter. When these atoms collided with one another, they might repel each other or they might connect in clusters, held together by tiny hooks and barbs on the surfaces of the atoms.Atomic theory is the description of atoms, the smallest units of elements. The void was the empty space in which the atoms moved and collided with one another. ![]() There were an infinite number of atoms, but different types of atoms had different sizes and shapes. The atomists of the time (Democritus being one of the leading atomists) believed there were two realities that made up the physical world: atoms and void. The word " atom" comes from the Greek \(\alpha \tau \omicron \mu \omicron \sigma\) and means "indivisible". (Credit: Antoine Coypel Source: (opens in new window) License: Public Domain)
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