Atomic Structure Review

CHEMISTRY UNIT 2
MR. PASKOWITZ
 History of the Atomic Model – Ancient Greece

Democritus (c460-371 BC) first came up with the idea

of atoms
He thought that if you keep cutting an element into
smaller pieces, eventually you must get to the smallest
piece
He called the smallest piece of an element “atomos”
Aristotle didn’t like this idea, because it meant that if
there was a smallest particle, then there must be empty
space between the particles, and he didn’t believe there
could be such a thing as empty space
 History of the Atomic Model – Dalton

Dalton (1803) was the first to come up with a

modern scientific model of the atom, developed by
careful experimentation and measurement
He thought that:
 Atoms are tiny indestructible spheres
 All atoms of the same element are EXACTLY alike
 Atoms of each element are unique
 Atoms aren’t created or destroyed, but are rearranged in
chemical reactions (Law of Conservation of Mass)
 Atoms combine in whole number ratios to make compounds
(the Law of Definite Composition)
 History of the Atomic Model – Thomson

JJ Thomson (1897) discovered the ELECTRON

He experimented with cathode ray tubes and
magnets
He found that cathode rays were repelled by the
negative side of a magnet and attracted to the
positive side
He concluded that the atom must
contain tiny, negatively charged
particles with almost no mass
He developed the “plum pudding
model”
 History of the Atomic Model – Rutherford

Rutherford (1911) discovered the NUCLEUS

He shot positively charged alpha particles at gold
foil, expecting them to travel through the atoms
Most went straight through, some were partially
deflected, and very few bounced almost straight back
The alpha particles
were deflected by a
small, massive,
positively-charged
nucleus
 History of the Atomic Model – Bohr

Bohr (1913) said that electrons orbit the nucleus, like

planets orbit the sun
He found that electrons only exist at certain
distances from the nucleus, like they’re on the rungs
of a ladder
It takes more energy for an
electron to be at a higher ENERGY
LEVEL
Bohr’s model works well for
hydrogen, but not as well for larger
atoms
 The Quantum Mechanical Model

The modern model is called the quantum mechanical

model, and says that we can only determine probable
locations where an electron exists
The quantum mechanical is complex, and is more
mathematical than the tangible Bohr model
Heisenberg (1925) said that electrons are so small
and so fast that we can’t pinpoint their locations. We
can only define a region in space where an electron is
likely to be
Schrodinger found that electrons behave like waves
 Particles of the Atom

Each element has a different kind of atom

Each atom has a nucleus, made of protons and
neutrons, and electrons, which make a cloud outside
the nucleus
A proton has a mass of about 1 amu and a positive 1
charge
A neutron has a mass of about 1 amu and no charge
An electron has negligible mass and a negative 1 charge
The nucleus has most of the mass, but takes up very
little volume in the atom; the atom is mostly empty
space
 The Periodic Table

The ATOMIC NUMBER is equal to the number of

PROTONS
Each element has a different atomic number
The MASS NUMBER is equal to the number of
protons and neutrons
To find the mass number, round the average atomic
mass to the nearest whole number
To find the number of neutrons, subtract the atomic
number from the mass number
Since an atom is electrically neutral, the number of
electrons is equal to the number of protons
 Elements and Their Properties

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES include mass, color,

boiling point, conductivity, and any other property
that can be measured without changing the chemical
composition of a substance
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES include reactivity, acidity,
flammability, and any properties that have to do with
chemical reactions that the substance undergoes.
Metals (most elements) are shiny, conductive,
malleable, and react with acids
Nonmetals are on the right side of the periodic table,
and are dull, brittle, and non-conductive
 Atoms and Their Masses

The Law of Definite Proportions, first

articulated by Joseph Proust in 1799, states that
whenever two elements combine to form a
compound, they do so in a definite proportion by
mass.
Dalton used this idea to develop his model of the
atom
By studying the way elements react with each other,
we can determine their relative masses
 Are Atoms Indivisible?

Thomson, an English physicist, found evidence for the

existence of negatively charged particles (electrons)
that could be removed from atoms
Thomson proposed a model of an atom that was a
positive sphere, with electrons evenly distributed and
embedded in it
Rutherford concluded from his gold foil experiment that
almost all the mass and all of the positive charge of the
atom is concentrated in an extremely small part at the
center, which he called the nucleus. He also coined the
term proton to name the smallest unit of positive charge
in the nucleus.
 The Chemical Behavior of Atoms

Bohr proposed a “planetary” model of the atom.

He theorized that electrons travel in nearly circular paths,
called orbits, around the nucleus.
Each electron orbit has a definite amount of energy, and
the farther away the electron is from the nucleus, the
greater is its energy.
Bohr suggested the revolutionary idea that electrons
“jump” between energy levels (orbits) in a quantum
fashion.
That is, they can never exist in an in-between state.
Electrons are the most stable when they are at lower
energy levels closer to the nucleus.
 What Determines and Limits an Atom’s Mass?

Although early models of the nucleus included the proton,

the proton alone could not account for the fact that the mass
of a helium atom is four times the mass of a hydrogen atom
while the electric charge on the helium nucleus is only twice
that of the hydrogen atom.
Lord Rutherford (after discovering that atoms had a nucleus)
addressed this problem when he suggested that another
particle was present in the nucleus, with about the same
mass as the proton but no electric charge. He named this
particle the neutron.
The neutron was actually discovered in 1932 (by Chadwick, a
British physicist), adding a great deal to the understanding of
the nucleus of the atom