A World Within: the Search for Subatomic Particles
Overview
Although the concept of the atom dates back to ancient Greece and the scientist/philosopher Democritus (c. 460-370 B.C.) who defined atoms as matter "unable to be cut," and since English scientist John Dalton's (1766-1844) articulation of atomic theory in 1803, the concept that matter consists of atoms and that atoms, in turn, are composed of smaller, subatomic particles has become an evolving but fundamental postulate of physical science. In the later half of the twentieth century as physicists explored the composition and properties of subatomic world, the impact of discoveries regarding subatomic particles bounded into the vastness of cosmological theory.
Background
The elegant simplicity of the indivisible atom was first shaken in the 1890s with English physicist J. J. Thomson's (1856-1940) discovery of the electron. Because electrons are negatively charged and atoms are electrically neutral, the existence of the electron implied the existence of at least one other subatomic particle to balance the electron's negative charge. That particle, the proton, was discovered by English physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) in 1919. The composition of the atom was far from settled, however, as evidence also existed for the presence of a third subatomic particle.
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