Atomic theory of the structure of matter from antiquity to modern times
Hello dear guests and subscribers of my channel. Today I want to tell you how the atomic theory of the structure of matter was born and developed.
The word "atom" itself is of Greek origin and literally means indivisible. It is believed that the very idea that smooth and at a glance continuous matter in reality consists of a huge amount microscopic (and therefore invisible) particles, proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, who shone with his mind in the 5th century BC ad.
Unfortunately, the works of the philosopher-thinker himself have not survived to this day, and we judge his works mainly on the basis of the authors of other works who cited excerpts from his works. And basically we focus on Aristotle.
Simple logic of Democritus
If you try to adapt the logic of the philosopher to modern realities, you get the following line of reasoning:
Let's take absolutely any object (that comes under your arm) and start cutting it with the sharpest knife in the world. Then we take one of the resulting halves and cut it in half as well. And we continue this process over and over again.
So, continuing this process of division, you and I will certainly reach the point where we get such a small particle of matter that it will no longer be possible to divide it into two halves. This will be the desired and indivisible atom of matter.
According to the reasoning of Democritus, the atoms were eternal, indivisible and remained unchanged constantly. And all the changes in the Universe occurred exclusively due to changes in the bonds between atoms.
This is how the Atom theory was born.
Modern ideas about the atom
At the moment, only one name remains from the conclusions of the ancient philosophers - "atom". Now almost every student knows that the atom itself consists of many so-called fundamental particles.
But in order to understand all this, modern scientists had to conduct a huge number of experiments. And the ancient philosopher could rely only on the power of his mind and in the course of reasoning made conclusions regarding the world order.
And the very idea of the atomic structure of the world was only philosophical until the 19th century. It was at this time that the formation of such a science as chemistry began. It was chemists who were the first to establish that in the course of reactions, very many substances decompose into simpler components.
For example, water (H2O) decomposes into oxygen and hydrogen, but oxygen and hydrogen itself does not undergo further decomposition (during chemical reactions).
Substances that did not change in any way during chemical reactions were called "chemical elements".
In addition, an extremely important circumstance was established. It turns out that during the course of a chemical reaction, the quantitative ratio of substances in one reaction remains unchanged.
The scientist John Dalton explained all these points. So in 1808 he published a two-volume book "A New System of Chemical Philosophy".
In short, in his writings he proposed to accept the fact that each chemical element has a unique atom. And as a result of the mixing of these unique atoms, all the chemicals in the world are formed.
Let's take the same water. According to Dalton, water consists of a single oxygen atom and a pair of hydrogen atoms.
And no matter where you take water, it will always consist of the same elements.
So, as for Democritus, for Dalton, atoms are absolutely indivisible building blocks of the universe. But the main idea of the works of the scientist of the 19th century is that each chemical element has a special atom, is still fundamental to modern chemistry.
This is despite the fact that we know very well that an atom is a complex structure of many smaller elements.
It turns out that despite the past millennia, the very concept of the atom is not exhausted even at the beginning of the 21st century.
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