INTRODUCTION

An atom is a particle that consist a nucleus of protons and neutrons

surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The atom is the basic particle of
the chemical elements, and the chemical elements are distinguished from
each other by the number of protons that are in their atoms. For example,
any atom that contains 11 protons is sodium, and any atom that contains
29 protons is copper. The number of neutrons defines the isotope of the
element.

HISTORY OF ATOMIC THEORY

The basic idea that matter is made up of tiny indivisible particles is an

old idea that appeared in many ancient cultures. The word atom is
derived from the ancient Greek word atomos, which means "uncuttable".
This ancient idea was based in philosophical reasoning rather than
scientific reasoning. Modern atomic theory is not based on these old
concepts. In the early 19th century, the scientist John Dalton noticed that
chemical elements seemed to combine with each other by discrete units
of weight, and he decided to use the word "atom" to refer to these units,
as he thought these were the fundamental units of matter.

DALTON’S LAW OF MULTIPLE PROPORTIONS

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In the early 1800s, the English chemist John Dalton compiled
experimental data gathered by him and other scientists and discovered a
pattern now known as the "law of multiple proportions".  There are two
types of tin oxide: one is a grey powder that is 88.1% tin and 11.9%
oxygen, and the other is a white powder that is 78.7% tin and 21.3%
oxygen. Adjusting these figures, in the grey powder there is about 13.5 g
of oxygen for every 100 g of tin, and in the white powder there is about
27 g of oxygen for every 100 g of tin. 13.5 And 27 form a ratio of 1:2.
Dalton concluded that in these oxides, for every tin atom there are one or
two oxygen atoms respectively (SnO and SnO2).

ISOMERISM

Scientists discovered some substances have the exact same chemical

content but different properties. For instance, in 1827, Friedrich
Wöhler discovered that silver fulminate and silver cyanate are both 107
parts silver, 12 parts carbon, 14 parts nitrogen, and 12 parts oxygen (we
now know their formulas as both AgCNO). In 1830 Jöns Jacob
Berzelius introduced the term isomerism to describe the phenomenon. In
1860, Louis Pasteur hypothesized that the molecules of isomers might
have the same composition but different arrangements of their atoms.

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 n-pentane isopentane neopentane

BROWNIAN MOTION
In 1827, the British botanist Robert Brown observed that dust particles
inside pollen grains floating in water constantly jiggled about for no
apparent reason. In 1905, Albert Einstein theorized that this Brownian
motion was caused by the water molecules continuously knocking the
grains about, and developed a mathematical model to describe it. This
model was validated experimentally in 1908 by French physicist Jean
Perrin, who used Einstein's equation to calculate the number of atoms in
a mole and the size of atoms

DISCOVERY OF NUCLEUS

J. J. Thomson thought that the negatively-charged electrons were

distributed throughout the atom in a sea of positive charge that was
distributed across the whole volume of the atom. This model is
sometimes known as the plum pudding model. Ernest Rutherford and his
colleagues Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden came to doubt the Thomson
model after they encountered difficulties when they tried to build an
instrument to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of alpha particles (these

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are positively-charged particles emitted by certain radioactive substances
such as radium). The alpha particles were being scattered by the air in
the detection chamber, which made the measurements unreliable.
Thomson had encountered a similar problem in his work on cathode
rays, which he solved by creating a near-perfect vacuum in his
instruments. Rutherford did not think he'd run into this same problem
because alpha particles are much heavier than electrons. According to
Thomson's model of the atom, the positive charge in the atom is not
concentrated enough to produce an electric field strong enough to deflect
an alpha particle, and the electrons are so lightweight they should be
pushed aside effortlessly by the much heavier alpha particles.

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BOHR MODEL

In 1913, the physicist Niels Bohr proposed a model in which the

electrons of an atom were assumed to orbit the nucleus but could only do
so in a finite set of orbits, and could jump between these orbits only in
discrete changes of energy corresponding to absorption or radiation of a
photon. This quantization was used to explain why the electrons' orbits
are stable (given that normally, charges in acceleration, including
circular motion, lose kinetic energy which is emitted as electromagnetic
radiation, see synchrotron radiation) and why elements absorb and emit
electromagnetic radiation in discrete spectra.

THE SCHRODINGER MODEL

In 1925, Werner Heisenberg published the first consistent mathematical

formulation of quantum mechanics (matrix mechanics). One year
earlier, Louis de Broglie had proposed that all particles behave like
waves to some extent, and in 1926 Erwin Schrödinger used this idea to
develop the Schrödinger equation, a mathematical model of the atom

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that described the electrons as three-dimensional waveforms rather than
points in space.
A consequence of using waveforms to describe particles is that it is
mathematically impossible to obtain precise values for both
the position and momentum of a particle at a given point in time. This
became known as the uncertainty principle, formulated by Werner
Heisenberg in 1927. In this concept, for a given accuracy in measuring a
position one could only obtain a range of probable values for
momentum, and vice versa. This model was able to explain observations
of atomic behavior that previous models could not, such as certain
structural and spectral patterns of atoms larger than hydrogen. Thus, the
planetary model of the atom was discarded in favor of one that
described atomic orbital zones around the nucleus where a given
electron is most likely to be observed.

DISCOVERY OF NUCLEUS

The development of the mass spectrometer allowed the mass of atoms to

be measured with increased accuracy. The device uses a magnet to bend
the trajectory of a beam of ions, and the amount of deflection is
determined by the ratio of an atom's mass to its charge. The
chemist Francis William Aston used this instrument to show that
isotopes had different masses. The atomic mass of these isotopes varied
by integer amounts, called the whole number rule.[33] The explanation
for these different isotopes awaited the discovery of the neutron, an
uncharged particle with a mass similar to the proton, by the
physicist James Chadwick in 1932. Isotopes were then explained as

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elements with the same number of protons, but different numbers of
neutrons within the nucleus.

NUCLEUS

All the bound protons and neutrons in an atom make up a tiny atomic

nucleus, and are collectively called nucleons. This is much smaller than
the radius of the atom, which is on the order of 105 fm. The nucleons are
bound together by a short-ranged attractive potential called the residual
strong force. At distances smaller than 2.5 fm this force is much more
powerful than the electrostatic force that causes positively charged
protons to repel each other. Atoms of the same element have the same
number of protons, called the atomic number. Within a single element,
the number of neutrons may vary, determining the isotope of that
element. The total number of protons and neutrons determine
the nuclide. The number of neutrons relative to the protons determines
the stability of the nucleus, with certain isotopes undergoing radioactive
decay.

A nucleus that has a different number of protons than neutrons can

potentially drop to a lower energy state through a radioactive decay that
causes the number of protons and neutrons to more closely match. As a
result, atoms with matching numbers of protons and neutrons are more
stable against decay, but with increasing atomic number, the mutual
repulsion of the protons requires an increasing proportion of neutrons to
maintain the stability of the nucleus.

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NUCLEAR PROPERTIES

Atoms with equal numbers of protons but a different number

of neutrons are different isotopes of the same element. For example, all
hydrogen atoms admit exactly one proton, but isotopes exist with no
neutrons (hydrogen-1, by far the most common form, also called
protium), one neutron (deuterium), two neutrons (tritium) and more than
two neutrons. The known elements form a set of atomic numbers, from
the single-proton element hydrogen up to the 118-proton
element oganesson. All known isotopes of elements with atomic
numbers greater than 82 are radioactive, although the radioactivity of
element 83 (bismuth) is so slight as to be practically negligible.
Stability of isotopes is affected by the ratio of protons to neutrons, and
also by the presence of certain "magic numbers" of neutrons or protons
that represent closed and filled quantum shells. These quantum shells
correspond to a set of energy levels within the shell model of the
nucleus; filled shells, such as the filled shell of 50 protons for tin,
confers unusual stability on the nuclide. Of the 251 known stable
nuclides, only four have both an odd number of protons and odd number
of neutrons: hydrogen-2 (deuterium), lithium-6, boron-10, and nitrogen-
14. (Tantalum-180m is odd-odd and observationally stable, but is
predicted to decay with a very long half-life.) Also, only four naturally
occurring, radioactive odd-odd nuclides have a half-life over a billion
years: potassium-40, vanadium-50, lanthanum-138, and lutetium-176.
Most odd-odd nuclei are highly unstable with respect to beta decay,
because the decay products are even-even, and are therefore more
strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects.

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ORIGIN AND CURRENT STATE

Baryonic matter forms about 4% of the total energy density of

the observable universe, with an average density of about
0.25 particles/m3 (mostly protons and electrons). Within a galaxy such as
the Milky Way, particles have a much higher concentration, with the
density of matter in the interstellar medium (ISM) ranging from 105 to
109 atoms/m3. The Sun is believed to be inside the Local Bubble, so the
density in the solar neighborhood is only about 103 atoms/m3. Stars form
from dense clouds in the ISM, and the evolutionary processes of stars
result in the steady enrichment of the ISM with elements more massive
than hydrogen and helium.

Up to 95% of the Milky Way's baryonic matters are concentrated inside

stars, where conditions are unfavorable for atomic matter. The total
baryonic mass is about 10% of the mass of the galaxy;] the remainder of
the mass is an unknown dark matter. High temperature inside stars
makes most "atoms" fully ionized, that is, separates all electrons from
the nuclei. In stellar remnants—with exception of their surface layers—
an immense pressure make electron shells impossible.

FORMATION

Electrons are thought to exist in the Universe since early stages of

the Big Bang. Atomic nuclei form in nucleosynthesis reactions. In about
three minutes Big Bang nucleosynthesis produced most of
the helium, lithium, and deuterium in the Universe, and perhaps some of
the beryllium and boron.

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Ubiquitousness and stability of atoms relies on their binding energy,
which means that an atom has a lower energy than an unbound system of
the nucleus and electrons. Where the temperature is much higher
than ionization potential, the matter exists in the form of plasma—a gas
of positively charged ions (possibly, bare nuclei) and electrons. When
the temperature drops below the ionization potential, atoms
become statistically favorable. Atoms (complete with bound electrons)
became to dominate over charged particles 380,000 years after the Big
Bang—an epoch called recombination, when the expanding Universe
cooled enough to allow electrons to become attached to nuclei.

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