by John Traveler

Created on: February 12, 2010   Last Updated: February 15, 2010

You can't see just one of them, but they are all around and in us. They are the smallest stable constructs of matter, and at the same time are little packages of energy. The idea for atoms dates back 25 centuries, when Ionian philosopher Democritus developed the very first theory of atomic structure. He hypothesized matter was made up of tiny particle Democritus termed “atomos,”in the Greek lexicon meaning indivisible.

Unfortunately, another Greek philosopher, born just fourteen years after Democritus died, took exception with his theories and proposed a few of this own. Many of Aristotle's notions, as we know today, were whimsical absurdities. Unfortunately, almost 2,000 years past before Robert Boyle, experimenting with how atoms work, discovered that Democritus theory about atoms was pretty much correct. Today, Boyle is revered as the father of modern chemistry, and he defined many laws that are still respected as fundamental natural laws. But it would take another 200 years before scientists building on the efforts of Boyle and others who followed him, would discover just how atoms worked.

Early in the 20th century, Earnest Rutherford proposed a theory of atomic structure suggesting atoms had a nucleus of positively charged protons surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Furthermore, he proposed that the way atoms worked, was directly related to electrical interactions between the atoms elementary components. Danish Physicist Neils Bohr, building on Rutherford’s work, establish the electron shell theory, further refining how atoms electrically interact with other atoms. In 1932, James Chadwick discovered that Rutherford’s protons actually consisted of two types of nuclear particles, protons which exhibit a positive electrical charge, and neutrons, which are electrical charge neutral. The fundamental particle constituents of atoms all having been identified, physicist turned their attention to the relationships between these particles and transmutable status of energy and matter.   

For the better part of the 20th century, physicists and chemists endeavored to understand the nano-universe of subatomic particles, attempting to establish a complete picture of how atoms work. They have done so with great success, but achievement of full understanding, with respect to quantum mechanical manifestations, remains elusive. Nevertheless, we can discuss with certainty today, the realities of the three major forces at work in atoms, the

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