"I believe that there are four elements of the world: Earth, air, fire and water. A person can see that all substances have different degrees of each of these building blocks "
"All matter is composed of particles called atoms. Each substance has a different geometric shape. And all atoms are uniform, indestructible, and solid.
Ancient Greece
Democritus
Aristotle
John Dalton
"You guys are wrong. I measured many things and this is what I ended up with: Matter is made of small particles called atoms. Atoms are indestructible. Atoms of an element are identical, but atoms of different elements are different. An atom is a solid, indivisible sphere. I saw that whenever the same two elements form more than one compound, the different masses of the one element that combine with the same mass of the other element it is in the ratio of small whole numbers.
Democritus
Thomson
"I used a Crookes tube attached electricity and it casted a shadow opposite the cathode. This showed that there are negative particles called electrons that are always identical. I believe that the atom is a positively charged cloud with negative particles scattered throughout.