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Atomic theory is one of the most important scientific developments in history, crucial to all the physical sciences. At the start of The Feynman Lectures on Physics , physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman offers the atomic hypothesis as the single most prolific scientific concept.
Atomic physics is the subfield of AMO that studies atoms as an isolated system of electrons and an atomic nucleus, while molecular physics is the study of the physical properties of molecules. The term atomic physics is often associated with nuclear power and nuclear bombs, due to the synonymous use of atomic and nuclear in standard English.
1803 John Dalton introduces atomic ideas into chemistry and states that matter is composed of atoms of different weights; 1805 (approximate time) Thomas Young conducts the double-slit experiment with light; 1811 Amedeo Avogadro claims that equal volumes of gases should contain equal numbers of molecules
This was a significant step in the development of quantum mechanics. It also described the possibility of atomic energy levels being split by a magnetic field (called the Zeeman effect). Walther Kossel worked with Bohr and Sommerfeld on the Bohr–Sommerfeld model of the atom introducing two electrons in the first shell and eight in the second. [8]
The way the atomic orbitals on different atoms combine to form molecular orbitals determines the structure and strength of chemical bonds between atoms. The field of quantum chemistry was pioneered by physicists Walter Heitler and Fritz London , who published a study of the covalent bond of the hydrogen molecule in 1927.
Thomson's model marks the moment when the development of atomic theory passed from chemists to physicists. While atomic theory was widely accepted by chemists by the end of the 19th century, physicists remained skeptical because the atomic model lacked any properties which concerned their field, such as electric charge, magnetic moment, volume, or absolute mass.
Nucleosynthesis is the process that creates new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons (protons and neutrons) and nuclei. According to current theories, the first nuclei were formed a few minutes after the Big Bang, through nuclear reactions in a process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis. [1]
A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity. II. The Modern Theories (1800-1950). American Institute of Physics. ISBN 978-0-88318-523-0. (Early history of the Stark effect) E. U. Condon & G. H. Shortley (1935). The Theory of Atomic Spectra. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-09209-8.