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Atomism (from Greek ἄτομον, atomon, i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") [1] [2] [3] is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms. References to the concept of atomism and its atoms appeared in both ancient Greek and ancient Indian philosophical traditions.
Thomson further explained that ions are atoms that have a surplus or shortage of electrons. [51] Thomson's model is popularly known as the plum pudding model, based on the idea that the electrons are distributed throughout the sphere of positive charge with the same density as raisins in a plum pudding. Neither Thomson nor his colleagues ever ...
Ions consisting of only a single atom are termed atomic or monatomic ions, while two or more atoms form molecular ions or polyatomic ions. In the case of physical ionization in a fluid (gas or liquid), "ion pairs" are created by spontaneous molecule collisions, where each generated pair consists of a free electron and a positive ion. [5]
Atoms can attach to one or more other atoms by chemical bonds to form chemical compounds such as molecules or crystals. The ability of atoms to attach and detach from each other is responsible for most of the physical changes observed in nature. Chemistry is the science that studies these changes.
Thus, iron atoms are solid and strong with hooks that lock them into a solid; water atoms are smooth and slippery; salt atoms, because of their taste, are sharp and pointed; and air atoms are light and whirling, pervading all other materials. [3] It was Democritus that was the main proponent of this view.
The first "pure" Bose–Einstein condensate was created by Eric Cornell, Carl Wieman, and co-workers at JILA. They did this by cooling a dilute vapor consisting of approximately two thousand rubidium-87 atoms to below 170 nK using a combination of laser cooling and magnetic evaporative cooling.
At the start of the 20th century, the vigorous debate as to the existence of atoms had not yet been resolved. Philosophers such as Ernst Mach and Wilhelm Ostwald denied that atoms were real, viewing them as a convenient mathematical construct, while scientists such as Arnold Sommerfeld and Ludwig Boltzmann saw that physical theories required the existence of atoms.
This comprises ions, neutral atoms and, unless otherwise stated, it can be assumed that the term atom includes ions. The term atomic physics can be associated with nuclear power and nuclear weapons , due to the synonymous use of atomic and nuclear in standard English .