Atomic Theory

Democritus first suggested the existence of the atom but it took almost two millennia before the atom was placed on a solid foothold as a fundamental chemical object by John Dalton (1766-1844). Although two centuries old, Dalton's atomic theory remains valid in modern chemical thought.

Dalton's Atomic Theory

1) All matter is made of atoms. Atoms are indivisible and indestructible.

2) All atoms of a given element are identical in mass and properties

3) Compounds are formed by a combination of two or more different kinds of atoms.

4) A chemical reaction is a rearrangementof atoms.

Peter Higgs is a theoretical physicist who in 1964 published the idea that subatomic particles gained mass by way of an as-yet-undiscovered particle (or field) that has since been called the Higgs boson. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 for his discovery.

It was one more critical step in understanding what's called the Standard Model of how the universe works. Things are made of atoms, atoms are made of subtomic particles, which are made of even smaller things, none of which on their own have mass, just energy. So where does mass come from? Higgs (and several others) came up with the theory of particle interaction that explains how that happens.

C101 index - Indiana University Northwest. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://www.iun.edu/~cpanhd/C101webnotes/index.html

Peter Ware Higgs Biography (Physicist) - Infoplease. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/peterwarehiggs.html

Element Encyclopedia

Atomic Theory