Modern Physics The Atom
What is physics really about Mechanics we look at interactions between bodies Electricity and magnetism we look at interactions between charges Waves and light are about the transfer of energy Mass Charge Energy
What is matter (the stuff around us) If you took a lump of matter, could you keep on dividing it in two or would you get to a piece so small that you couldn’t divide any further? The greeks deicded you couldn’t – they called the smallest particle an atom (the greek word for indivisible)
Aristotle The greeks thought all matter made of earth, air, fire and water Eg lead was a mixture of these so if you could change the mixture You could turn gold into lead!
1800 Compunds were known about Dalton came up with the idea that compounds were made up of atoms Lead and gold atoms different so could not change lead to gold
1910 Thompson came up with plum pudding model for the atom Knew about electrons (the plums) and said the dough was positive Matter is mass, charge and energy!
1911 – NZ’s Rutherford Gold foil experiment using alpha (+) particles (He nuclei) fired through very thin gold foil onto a zinc sulfide screen Most particles went straight through but some scattered through a large angle
The details Rutherford considered The large scattering of the alpha (+) particles suggested there was a large + charge at the centre of a gold atom Gold is neutral so the electrons must be small and orbiting The atom must be mostly empty space
1913 - Bohr Bohr put the electrons into energy shells around the nucleus Chadwick discovered the neutron in the nucleus The model of the atom took 2000 years to design and we have had it about 70 years!
The atom is really more complex But for Year 12 Physics – we don’t care!
Atomic notation Element symbol Atomic number – give the number of protons in the nucleus and therefore the number of electrons in neutral atom Mass number – how many particles in the nucleus
Isotopes – very important to nuclear physics They are atoms that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons Heavier isotopes of an atom are unstable and are the most likely to decay or be involved in nuclear reactions