Atomic Structure Introduction

The evidence of the electrical nature of matter preceeded the first theories about the structure of matter. In 1832, Michael Faraday discovered electrolysis. He gave the first important clue relating electricity to matter and about the electric nature of atoms.

Faraday enunciated two laws of electrolysis:

• If a fixed amount of electricity is passed through a cell, it produces a fixed amount of a particular substance at the electrode.

• The number of moles of various substances liberated at an electrode by a fixed amount of electricity is in the ratio of fixed integers.

John Dalton's Atomic theory in 1890, was the first definite theory on the structure of matter. It summarised that all matter was composed of indivisible and extremely small structureless, hard, spherical particles called atoms. However, later discoveries at the turn of the 20^th century showed that atoms had still a further complex structure and consisted of smaller particles called electrons, protons and neutrons. These were considered the fundamental particles of all atoms.