Chemical Forums

General Forums => Generic Discussion => Topic started by: user11 on July 05, 2014, 10:48:42 AM

Title: Discovery of the atom, electron etc. Where are the experiments that prove it?
Post by: user11 on July 05, 2014, 10:48:42 AM

Hi,I find it sad that textbooks state JJ.Thomsons, Rutherfords, Milikan, Borhs etc. discoveries as facts without actually showing the whole experiment and showing in detail how they performed the experiment and how they derived their equations. Are there any textbooks that actually do this? I feel quite dumb when I only learn equations and how to calculate different units or physical quantities from equations without gaining any intuitive understanding of how this works experimentally.

Title: Re: Discovery of the atom, electron etc. Where are the experiments that prove it?
Post by: Ben Bob on July 05, 2014, 11:15:59 AM

The first few lectures MIT's online chemistry series do a good job explaining the early modern discoveries, if you are interested in the video route.
Here's the link to the free playlist:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-112-principles-of-chemical-science-fall-2005/video-lectures/

Title: Re: Discovery of the atom, electron etc. Where are the experiments that prove it?
Post by: Borek on July 05, 2014, 03:46:42 PM

These experiments are described in details in the original papers. Could be they can be googled (although they can be behind paywalls).