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

Democritus, John Dalton, J.J. Thomson, Max Planck, E. Goldstein, and Albert Einstein were the main developers of the atom.

Democritus started it by asking the question "if you break a piece of matter in half and break that piece in half how many breaks will you have to make till you can't break it any further." He thought there was an end to it and so he called these basic matter pieces atoms.

John Dalton performed experiments with different chemicals and found out that the matter consisted of tiny elementary particles (atoms).

J.J. Thomson discovered the electron and said we should make a model of the atom.

Max Planck discovered if you vibrate atoms enough you can measure the energy in small amounts he called these quanta.

Albert Einstein wrote about how light absorption can release electrons from atoms he called it photoelectric effect.

E. Goldstein observed a cathode ray tube and found rays traveling opposite directions and found that the smallest ray with the smallest e/m ratio was a proton.

Why were they vital to the development of the atom_

Without these discoveries we wouldn't 1) even know about atoms. 2) know what they look like and how they work.

What made them different if anything?

They were willing to branch out and come up with ideas that some people may have thought were insane or otherwise useless. Through this though they came up with some of the most amazing discoveries of all time.

- 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?)

Most of these people were in a time period when people didn't know much about the small things in the world. People didn't know why they got bacterial infections etc... so people were looking for answer they wanted to know why these things were happening.

- 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

The atomic theory is still a theory because 1) it all can't be proven 2) we know that atoms can be divided (ex. Atomic Bomb).

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

Well all matter is composed of atoms and we are made of atoms so if we understand the atom we begin to understand ourselves better, which could lead to better medicine and overall knowledge of humans.