History of Chemistry and Atomic Structure

Flashcards covering key figures, laws, and discoveries in the history of chemistry and atomic structure, from the 18th to the 20th century.

Antoine Lavoisier

Known as the "Father of Modern Chemistry," he revolutionized chemistry to a quantitative science, formulated the law of conservation of mass, identified and named oxygen and hydrogen, and established modern chemical nomenclature.

Law of Conservation of Mass

Formulated by Lavoisier, it states that mass is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction.

Joseph-Louis Proust

A French chemist who formulated the law of definite proportions.

Law of Definite Proportions

States that a given chemical compound always contains its component elements in fixed ratios by mass.

John Dalton

A British scientist whose work revived the atomic theory of matter and established the foundation of modern chemistry.

Dalton's Atomic Theory

Proposed that all matter is composed of indivisible and indestructible atoms, that atoms of a given element are identical, and different elements have different atoms.

Amedeo Avogadro

An Italian chemist who proposed Avogadro's law.

Avogadro's Law

States that equal volumes of all gases at the same temperature and pressure have the same number of molecules.

J.J. Thomson

An English physicist who discovered the electron using a cathode ray tube and proposed the "plum pudding model" of the atom.

Plum Pudding Model

J.J. Thomson's model of the atom where negatively charged electrons were embedded in a positively charged sphere.

Ernest Rutherford

A physicist who, with his gold foil experiment, discovered that an atom's mass and positive charge are concentrated in a small central nucleus, disproving the plum pudding model.

Gold Foil Experiment

Ernest Rutherford's experiment that led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus, located at the center of the atom.

Robert Millikan

An American physicist who, with his oil-drop experiment, determined the fundamental charge of an electron.

Oil-Drop Experiment

Robert Millikan's experiment that determined the fundamental charge of an electron.

Niels Bohr

A Danish physicist who developed the Bohr model of the atom.

Bohr Model

An atomic model proposing that electrons orbit the nucleus in specific, fixed energy levels.

James Chadwick

An English physicist who discovered the neutron, the uncharged particle located in the atomic nucleus.

Neutron

The uncharged particle discovered by James Chadwick, located in the atomic nucleus, which explains the discrepancy between an element's atomic number and its mass.