Cool old atomic models #shorts #history #atomic

The Vintage Space
76 followers
2 Video Views·Aug 8, 2025
Full video is right here: https://youtu.be/BUV8XYaZ4EU
Also these models are obviously for illustrative purposes only, the starting image being the most often "accepted" illustration of an atom. The point is that before we found the nucleus and started to understand the atom, there were some neat ideas of what it might look like!
Reposting after realizing I had the wrong image in for JJ Thompson. Editing brain is real!
This is what we generally agree an atom
looks like, right? I mean, it's
obviously an artist rendering. The
artist in this case being myself, but
still, this is what an atom looks like.
But how did we get to this drawing? And
were there other options? Because yes,
there were so many other atomic models,
and they are all completely insane. So,
let me walk you through them. The first
one on our list was the front runner
before the nucleus was discovered, and
that's the plum pudding model. Generally
attributed to JJ Thompson, this was an
atomic model that imagined the atom was
a positive sphere with electrons
embedded at regular intervals, kind of
like raisins in a plum pudding, making
it overall neutral. The benefit of this
model was it was extremely stable. If an
electron were somehow displaced, the
rest would settle back into their
original positions or pretty close to
their original positions. Then we have
John William Strat's version of the plum
pudding model. This is a version of the
plum pudding model with so many
electrons that they effectively formed a
vibrating fluid overlapping the positive
electron sphere. English physicist JH
genes had a model where the vibrating
electrons were the cause of emitted
light. British mathematician GA shot had
a vibrating model with electrons
expanding to explain emitted light. One
really great one comes from German
physicist Johannes Stark. His arian
model had the atom basically made of
tiny magnets with the electron being the
negatively charged pole arranged in a
closed loop. And then there was the
Satnian model proposed by Japanese
physicist Hunaro Nagoka. The Satnia
model was the one with a mass in the
middle. So when Ernst Rutherford
discovered the nucleus, the Shatternian
model became the going model. There's
obviously a lot more going on inside the
atom and a lot more to say about the
discovery of the atom and the nucleus
and the electron and the proton and the
neutron. All of which I've gone into
detail on in my latest YouTube video.
You can check it out at the link in my
description.
