Atomic History (How We Know What We Know About Atoms)

To understand the atom, you will need to understand its basic structure (what it's made of and how those parts are arranged).

It can also be helpful to understand it from a historical perspective and to see how our understanding and knowledge was built up.


There are (arguably) several different historical paths here. One tells us about the beginnings of science and chemistry, one tells us about our growing understanding of the internal structure of atoms. The last looks more intensely at electrons (a MUCH more complicated thing).

A note of historical perspective. As this section of aBetterChemText is about how we came to our current understanding of atomic structure, and because most of this work was done in the 1700's, 1800's and 1900's in Europe, it is a story dominated by white men. This is, of course, not about skills, knowledge or ability of any group of people. Rather it is simply the consequence of the social structures that controlled money, class and education at the time.