Kallie!

-who were the main characters in the development of the atom

The main characters in the development of the atom were Democritus and John Dalton. Democritus was a Greek philosopher who brought the idea about that matter consisted of tiny particles, which became known as atoms. Dalton ran across this idea while he was conducting many experiments and realizing compounds must have a definite composition, this became know as Dalton's Atomic Theory. Dalton backed up Proust's' and Lavoisier's theories as well. Both Democritus and John Dalton had a big part in the development of the atom.

- Why were they vital to the development of the atom

Democritus was the "inventor" of the atom, if you will. He thought of this and gave it a name, the atom. Dalton put all of his theories, and the theories of others to the test, and came up with very important results which proved the existence of the atom.

_ what made them different if anything

Dalton was the one who proved all of these theories and the Law of Conservation of mass, and helped all of us better understand the atom.

- Think about your lessons in history and discuss how the time period that they lived in determined the outcome of their discovery/ or how it influenced those individuals to be the names that we know today (aka did it matter where they grew up or if they had money?)

In that time period, they didn't have as many resources but had other scientists results to go off of and expand. Money mattered very much, they would've had to have had money to get lab equipment and test the hypothesis'.

- Why do we consider the atomic theory still a theory? What are the new developments- would love for you to share new sources here about what you find

We still consider it a theory because not everything the scientists have hypothesised has turned up to be true. Today we know that atoms can be destroyed via nuclear reactions but not by chemical reactions. Also, there are different kinds of atoms (differing by their masses) within an element that are known as "isotopes", but isotopes of an element have the same chemical properties.

- Why does it matter that we understand the structure of the atom.

It matters because everything is made up of atoms; if we understand them, we can understand the things around us, even down to the tinniest atom.