STRUC

TURE
OF
THE
ATOM
Presented by:

IAN MARK F. ALLAS

Quezon City Science High School
 Figure 1. Timeline of Atomic Theory

BRIEF HISTORY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATOMIC THEORY

In the 5th century, Democritus and Leucippus made into the idea that matter is composed of small indivisible
composition which they referred to as atomos – the word in which the term atom is derived – which means
“uncuttable”. However, the concept of atomos was ignored because of the Aristotelian perspective which he
proposed that matter is made up of a proportion of elements of earth, water, fire, air. The idea of atomos was
taken back because during that time, Aristotle was known as a great philosopher and his idea and teachings are
taken widely by many.

Years passed, scientists started to study matter, 2000 years after, John Dalton proposes the atomic theory
(1803). According to Dalton, all matters consist of an indivisible particle called an atom, and the element of the
same atom is identical. This kind of atom in an element distinguishes its kind from the other.

Further experiments about matter were made up until 1897 when J. J. Thompson was able to establish the
existence of the electron. The Thomson model, also known as the plum pudding model was presented in 1903 in
which he made an analogy of the atom to be like a blueberry muffin – the blueberry represents the electrons
embedded in a spherical positively charge muffin.

Soon after the discovery of the electron, in 1911 protons were discovered. British scientist Ernest Rutherford and
his colleagues Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden made an experiment that changes how atoms were viewed.
They found that the positive charge in an atom is clustered in a small area called the nucleus. The setup was
made using a gold foil experiment in which radioactive an alpha emitter was directed toward a sheet of gold foil
that was surrounded by a screen. The screen served as a detection screen for deflected particles. The
experiment shows that some alpha particles were deflected at large angles, which in turn explains that atoms
have a very small dense, positively charged center. This atomic model was known as the nuclear model.

In 1913, Niels Bohr proposed a new view of an atom. This Bohr model is commonly known as the planetary
model of the atom. Orbiting the center of the atom are electrons like how planets are orientated in orbit around the
sun. He further suggests that electrons these electrons can only move in a certain orbit at a certain distance from
the nucleus. This orbit is as well associated with a specific energy or energy level. Furthermore, electrons can
only gain or lose energy through leaping from one allowed orbit to another. This theory of the atom was
considered to successfully account for the discrete energy level.

In 1920, Edwin Schrödinger viewed atoms using his quantum mechanical model. In this model, he pictured out
that, unlike Bohr’s model where the electron has a specific orbit around the nucleus, the electron instead is found
in an electron cloud. The denser the cloud is, the more likely an electron can be found. Schrödinger replaced
Bohr’s idea about the location of electrons using his wave equation with uncertainty factor.
In 1932, James Chadwick discovered the neutron. A neutral charge particle is found inside the nucleus along with
the protons.

Activity:

John Dalton (1766 – 1844):

John Dalton was an English chemist. His ideas form the atomic theory of matter. Here are his ideas.

 All elements are composed (made up) of atoms. It is impossible to divide or destroy an
atom.
 All atoms of the same elements are alike. (One atom of oxygen is like another atom of
oxygen.)
 Atoms of different elements are different. (An atom of oxygen is different from an atom of
hydrogen.)
 Atoms of different elements combine to form a compound. These atoms have to be in definite
whole number ratios. For example, water is a compound made up of 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1
atom of oxygen (a ratio of 2:1). Three atoms of hydrogen and 2 atoms of oxygen cannot
combine to make water.

1. What is the name of John Dalton’s theory?

2. What are elements made of?

3. An atom of hydrogen and an atom of carbon are .

4. What are compounds made of?

5. The ratio of atoms in HCl is: a) 1:3 b) 2:1 c) 1:1

J. J. Thompson (Late 1800s):

J. J. Thompson was an English scientist. He discovered the electron when he was experimenting with gas
discharge tubes. He noticed a movement in a tube. He called the movement cathode rays. The rays moved
from the negative end of the tube to the positive end. He realized that the rays were made of negatively
charged particles – electrons.

1. What did J.J. Thompson discover?

2. What is the charge of an electron? _

3. What are cathode rays made of?

4. Why do electrons move from the negative end of the tube to the positive end?

5. What was Thompson working with when he discovered the cathode rays?
Lord Ernest Rutherford (1871 – 1937):

Ernest Rutherford conducted a famous experiment called the gold foil experiment. He
used a thin sheet of gold foil. He also used special equipment to shoot alpha particles
(positively charged particles) at the gold foil. Most particles passed straight through
the foil like the foil was not there. Some particles went straight back or were deflected
(went in another direction) as if they had hit something. The experiment shows:

 Atoms are made of a small positive nucleus; positive nucleus repels

(pushes away) positive alpha particles
 Atoms are mostly empty space

1. What is the charge of an alpha particle?

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2. Why is Rutherford’s experiment called the gold foil experiment?

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3. How did he know that an atom was mostly empty space?

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4. What happened to the alpha particles as they hit the gold foil?

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5. How did he know that the nucleus was positively charged?
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Niels Bohr (Early 1900s):

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist. He proposed a model of the atom that is similar to
the model of the solar system. The electrons go around the nucleus like planets orbit
around the sun. All electrons have their energy levels – a certain distance from the
nucleus. Each energy level can hold a certain number of electrons. Level 1 can hold
2 electrons, Level 2 - 8 electrons, Level 3 - 18 electrons, and level 4 – 32 electrons.
The energy of electrons goes up from level 1 to other levels. When electrons release
(lose) energy they go down a level.
When electrons absorb (gain) energy, they go to a higher level.

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 1. Why could Bohr’s model be called a planetary model of the atom?
2. How do electrons in the same atom differ?
3. How many electrons can the fourth energy level hold?

4. Would an electron have to absorb or release energy to jump from the second
energy level to the third energy level?

5. For an electron to fall from the third energy level to the second energy level, it must
energy.

THE FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES

Atom is the smallest component of matter and is

considered to be indivisible. Through study and
experiments conducted by many scientists, they were able
to find what constitutes an atom. J.J. Thomson discovered
the electron. Robert A. Millikan made a refined
measurement of the electric charge of an electron. Using
his oil-drop experiment he was able to yield the most
precise value for the charge of the electron. Electrons are
negatively charged particles whose magnitude is -1.60 x
Figure 2. Atomic Structure
10-19 C and relative charge of -1. That is found orbiting the
nuclear center. It has a and mass of 9.11 x 10-31 kg or 0.0005485 amu.

The nucleus, composed of a positive charge particle known as proton and a neutrally
charge neutron, which was discovered by Rutherford and his colleagues and James
Chadwick, respectively. Proton is the simplest nucleus of a hydrogen (H) atom whose
charge is +1.60 x 10-19 C, and a relative charge of +1. It has a mass of 1.67(26219) x 10 -27 kg
or 1.007277 amu, while neutron has zero charges and has a mass of 1.67(26231) x 10 -27 kg
or 1.008665 amu. This composition of the nucleus constitutes what we called the nucleons.

Below is the table for the rest masses of the different basic particles in terms of kg and
atomic mass unit (u). Atomic mass unit (u) is defined as the mass equal to 1/12 the mass
of a carbon atom.

Mass
Particle kg u
-31
electron 9.1094 x 10 0.00054858
-27
proton 1.67262 x 10 1.007276
1
1 H atom 1.67353 x 10-27 1.007825
neutron 1.67493 x 10-27 1.008665
Table 1. Masses of basic particles

The number of protons in an atom is called the atomic number (Z). The total number of
neutrons and protons in a neutral atom is called the atomic mass number or atomic mass
(A).
The number of neutron N can be found by subtracting the mass number by the atomic
number, that is N = A – Z.

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 In a symbol, a particular element can be denoted by X
and is written in terms of atomic number and mass
number as in Figure 3.
12
Thus, an element with the notation 6 C can be
stated as a carbon atom with atomic number 6 and
Figure 3 mass number 12. From the same notation, we can get
the number of protons in carbon by simply looking at the
atomic number and the number of neutrons. In a neutral
atom, the number of electrons is the same as the number of protons.
Example:

Find the number of protons, electrons, and neutrons of the following nuclide:
1
1. 1 H
114
2. 48 Cd

Answer:
1. The number of protons in the hydrogen atom is 1 as specified by its atomic number
(Z). For a neutral atom, the number of protons and electrons is the same. Thus, the
number of electrons is also 1. The number of neutrons is equal to the mass number
minus the atomic number. Thus, the number of neutrons is zero (N = 1 – 1 = 0)

2. The atomic number of the given cadmium is 48. Thus, the number of protons is 48.
The number of electrons is also 48. The number of neutrons is 66 (N = 114 – 48 =
66).

Isotopes

In nature, some elements were found to have the same atomic number but have a different
mass number, these are called isotopes. Let us consider carbon, with an atomic number of
6. The number of protons is 6, but it can have a varied number of neutrons (12, 13, 14, 15,
and 16). These are known as isotopes of carbon.

Isotopes of a given nuclide occur in percentages. Take carbon as an example.

Carbon occurs at 98.9% and occurs at about 1.1%. This percentage is known as
natural abundance.

Atomic and Nuclear Radii

The approximate size of nuclei was determined by Rutherford through his experiment alpha
scattering experiment. The wave-particle duality hampers us in finding the definite size of the
nuclei, but through particle scattering, we can get a rough estimate of the size of the nucleus
of the atom. It was then found that the nucleus has a roughly spherical shape with a radius
approximated by the formula,
1
r ≈(1.2 x 10−15 m)( A 3 )
Where A is the atomic number.

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STABLE NUCLEI

The stability of the nucleus depends on several factors and no specific rule can allow us to
predict when this nucleus goes through certain radioactive decay. Some combinations of
neutrons and protons in the nucleus are more stable than the other. As a rule of thumb,
nuclei whose atomic number is less than 20 contain an approximately equal number of
neutrons, and protons are stable. While heavier nuclei, whose neutron – proton proportion is
greater tend to be unstable. The neutron-proton ratio is a perfect way to predict whether a
nuclide is stable or not. If the ratio is close to 1, it is stable – this is true for atoms with low
atomic numbers (less than 20 protons). For atoms whose Z is greater than 20 but less than
82, the n/p ratio increases. In this case, atoms are less stable. For Z greater than 82, the
atoms are unstable.
The strong nuclear force inside the nucleus exerts an attractive force among nucleons to
overcome repulsion brought by the electrostatic force existing between protons. The more
proton in the nucleus means greater neutrons are needed to bind them together. Nuclei with
higher atomic numbers have more neutrons and are needed to create stable nuclei.
Another way to predict stability is by looking at the “belt of stability” or “line of stability” graph.
The rough black line is the most stable region, while the straight black diagonal line is the
region at which N equals Z. If a nuclide lies above or below the rough black line, the nuclide
has the tends to become unstable and become radioactive.

Figure 4. Graph of the number of neutrons versus the number of protons

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NUCLEAR BINDING AND BINDING ENERGY
For a stable nucleus, the sum of the masses of the separate protons and neutrons would
always be greater than the mass of the nuclei.
Let us consider the helium (He) atom, how would you compare the total mass of Helium
(He) with its constituent particle?

Helium nucleus contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons. The mass of neutral atom is
4.002603 u. If we find the sum of the masses of its constituents, we get
2mn = 2 (1.008665 u) = 2.017330 u
2mp = 2 (1.007276 u) = 2.014552 u
2me = 2 (0.00054858 u) = 0.00109716 u
Total = 4.032980 u
Similarly, we can calculate the mass of He using a hydrogen atom which is composed of a
proton and an electron and has a mass of 1.007825 u.
2mn = 2 (1.008665 u) = 2.017330 u

2m(11 H ¿ = 2 (1.007825 u) = 2.015650 u

Total = 4.032980 u
From the above example, we notice that the sum of the constituent of the helium atom which
is 4.032980 u is greater than the mass of the neutral atom with 4.002603 u. The difference
between the constituent mass and the mass of the neutral atom is called the mass defect.
What happens to the missing mass?
The missing mass was converted to energy that was released during the formation of the
nucleus. This amount of energy is related to mass using Einstein’s mass-energy relation, E
= mc2. 1 u is 931.5 MeV (megaelectron volt). The released energy during the formation of
the nucleus is called binding energy. This binding energy is the same as the amount of
energy needed to break the nucleus apart to form its constituents.
The binding energy per nucleon is the average energy needed to separate each nucleon.
We can find the binding energy per nucleon using the equation:
BE
BEN =
A

Consider the helium atom ( ), the

total binding energy of a helium atom is
28.30 MeV, the total number of nucleons (A)
is 4, thus, the binding energy per nucleon of
helium atom is 28.30 Mev/4 = 7.1 MeV.
Figure 5 shows the binding energy per
nucleon as a function of A of stable nuclei.

Figure 5. Binding energy per nucleon

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References:
Textbook:
Beiser, Arthur (2003). Concepts of modern physics, sixth edition. McGraw-Hill Education (Asia).
Krane, Kenneth S., (2012). Modern physics, 3 rd edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Turner, James E. (2007). Atom, radiation, and radiation protection, third, completely revised and
enlarged edition. Wiley-VCH GmbH & Co.
Website:
Structure of atom. (2015). https://ncert.nic.in/ncerts/l/kech102.pdf.
Nuclear Stability. (2016). http://www.crossroadacademy.org/crossroads/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/Nuclear-Stability.pdf
History of the atom. (n.d.).
https://www.sisd.net/cms/lib/TX01001452/Centricity/Domain/1297/The_history_of_the_atom_Not
es-condensed.pdf
Nuclear Binding. https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv3openstax/chapter/nuclear-binding-energy

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