History+of+Atomic+Theory

Diana Shtyba and Analee C Mr.Brewer Science Class Period 1 November 15, 2010

"Atomic Theory"

“Atomic theory is the description of atoms, the smallest units of elements. The scientific evidence for the existence of atoms and its even smaller constituents is so vast that most people now consider the existence of atoms to be a fact and not just a theory.” That is an opinion, by a lot of scientist. Democritus, He imagined starting with a large piece of matter and cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces, finally reaching the smallest piece.This tiniest building block that could no longer be cut he named a-tomos, Greek for no cut, cant cut any smaller, a-tomos has been changed in modern times to "atom." The atoms Democritus envisioned differed only in shape and size. (what my Science Teacher told me a short story about a atoms, he said, "that Democritus was trying to prove a point so he got a chicken and started chopping it till it came to the smallest piece where he couldn't cut it any more." )

In his theory, different objects looked different because of the way the atoms were arranged. Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers of that time, believed in some kind of "smallest part" of matter but not with Democritus descriptions. Aristotle said there were only four elements (earth, air, fire, water) and that these had some smallest unit that made up all matter. Aristotle's teachings against the idea of Democritus atom were so powerful that the idea of the atom fell out of philosophical fashion for the next 2,000 years


 * **atomic theory = explaining macroscopic phenomenon through the behavior of microscopic atoms, in this case, kinetic behavior**
 * **temperature = velocity of atoms**
 * **pressure = momentum of atoms**

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