Southern Maramag Colleges Module 2 PHYSICAL SCIENCE

P2 South Pob., Maramag, Buk.

+63 953 255 9195
Name: ________________________________________________ Grade 11 Submission Date: ______________

Learning Outcomes
After going through this module, you are expected to:
1. Discuss key developments in the concept of the atom and element from Robert Boyle to John Dalton;
2. Discuss the aspects of the Chemical Atomic Theory, and relate its evidence (3 Fundamental Laws) to these
aspects;
3. Gain an appreciation of the scientists involved in the development of the science of Chemistry;
4. Explain how Moseley discovered the correlation between the atomic number of an element and the
wavelengths of x-rays emitted by the element; and
5. Discuss how new elements are synthesized.

LESSON 1 The Development of Atomic Theory

Robert Boyle
 Corpuscles were “certain primitive and simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies” that were indivisible and whole.
This went against the Aristotelian thinking that objects are made of infinitely divisible elements. It was more like
the idea of Democritus and Leucippus.
 He recognized elements as the simplest substances that constitute mixtures, and that elements are those that
cannot be decomposed into other substances via chemical reactions.
 He emphasized the need to observe and test the presence of corpuscles in alchemical experiments.
Antoine Lavoisier
Boyle’s empirical mindset slowly gained ground. The practice of performing experiments and attempting to give
possible explanations to their results and observations became more widespread. Around 1789, a French man named
Antoine Lavoisier used closed vessels and precise weight measurements in many experiments to achieve the following:
• He disproved the principle of phlogiston, where heated metals were thought to lose a substance of negative weight.
Metals, which gain weight when heated in open air, actually react with oxygen air, causing it to form a calx (metal
oxide).
• He showed that air is not an element because it could be separated into several components. By looking at the air
from reacting metals and calces, he found different “types” of air, one of which caused burning to happen. Lavoisier
called it oxygen.
• He showed that water is not an element, because it was made of two substances. Oxygen was found to produce water
when burned in the presence of “flammable air” (a part of air that would be later called hydrogen).
Lavoisier was able to refute Aristotle’s thinking of a universe composed of three or four elements. He had proof
of Boyle’s concept of a simple substance, now known as the chemical element. A chemical element is a substance that
cannot be broken down into simpler components. He defined a compound as a substance composed of these elements.
He came up with an initial list of 33 elements, and created a systematic way of naming elements and the compounds
they created. He also wrote the first Chemistry textbook. For this and many other contributions, he became known as
the Father of Chemistry.
John Dalton
John Dalton (1766-1844) - develop the concept of the atom. His Chemical Atomic Theory merged the concepts
of the atom and element, and formally established the two in the practice of chemistry.
• Gases, and all chemically inseparable elements, are made of atoms.
• The atoms of an element are identical in their masses.
• Atoms of different elements have different masses.
• Atoms combine in small, whole number ratios.

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The 3 Fundamental Laws:
• Antoine Lavoisier’s Law of Conservation of Mass
• Joseph Proust’s Law of Definite Proportions
• John Dalton’s Law of Multiple Proportions
ACTIVITY 1
Direction: Answer the following questions and write your answer on your paper.
1. Describe the 3 fundamental laws: Antoine Lavoisier’s Law of Conservation of Mass, Joseph Proust’s Law of
Definite Proportions and John Dalton’s Law of Multiple Proportions.
2. Relate the aspects of the Chemical Atomic Theory to these three fundamental laws. – which law contributes to
which aspect of the theory, and how?

Key developments in the concept of the atom and element from Robert Boyle to John Dalton:
• that elements were made of the same atoms and had properties unique to the element, while chemical compounds
were made of different combined or compounded atoms, and exhibited different sets of properties.
• that one could compute the weights of elements (and their atoms) by looking at comparable amounts of the
compounds they formed.
• that one could compute atomic weights compared to a reference. Dalton set the atomic weight of hydrogen to 1 as
this reference. For this reason, the unit for atomic weight was called the dalton for some time (it is now called the AMU
or atomic mass unit).

Other scientists who made headway in the concept of the element thanks to Dalton’s theory:
• Joseph Gay-Lussac determined that oxygen gas was made of 2 atoms of oxygen and took the form of a molecule
instead of an atom. This offered the possibility that an element wasn’t necessarily made up of one atom, thus
distinguishing the atom from the molecule.
• Amedeo Avogadro (the man who conceptualized the mole) determined that equivalent volumes of two gases under
similar conditions contained equal numbers of particles, and that differences in their masses was a result of a difference
in their molecular mass. Thus, he figured out a reliable way of weighing atoms and molecules. This was something
Dalton lacked in his theory.
Later on, Dmitri Mendeleev published a periodic table of elements that ordered elements according to their atomic
weights. He noted patterns in their properties that enabled him to predict the discovery of other elements. His table
became the basis of the modern Periodic Table.
• Many other scientists in the 19th century discovered more elements, thanks to Dalton’s theory, Mendeleev’s table,
and the advent of improved analytical and decomposition techniques. From Lavoisier’s 33 elements, the century ended
with 82.

ACTIVITY 2 Enrichment
To review most of the lesson, you can watch the video by CrashCourse Chemistry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiiyvzZBKT8.

ACTIVITY 3 My Atomic Timeline

Direction: You may use your creativity in this activity, create a timeline with the concepts or names of people or groups
who contributed the development of the atomic theory today. Include dates and time periods. Dates need not be exact
points on the line. You can modify the timeline by adding brackets (e.g. for alchemy spanning several hundred years) or
you can link metacards, use arrows or lines to denote periods, etc.

ACTIVITY 4 Essay writing

Direction: Choose from one of the three significant names in the discussion: Boyle, Lavoisier, or Dalton. Write five to
seven paragraphs on the life of your chosen scientist, highlighting three to five significant contributions to Science as a
whole (not necessarily Chemistry).

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LESSON 2 Henry Moseley, the Atomic Number, and Synthesis of Elements

ACTIVITY 5 Making Your Own Periodic Table

Direction: Make your own periodic table using the hypothetical elements that are given in the clues. Explain the word/s
that will be formed if you arrange the symbols of the elements correctly. Write your answer below.
a) P and Pr both have one electron each. Pr has a bigger atomic size.
b) Od, Ri, and E are in the same series as P, C, and I. In terms of atomic size, P is the biggest while C is the smallest. E is a
metal while I is a non-metal. Od is smaller than Ri in atomic size.
c) O has a bigger atomic size than E in the same group. Y is also a bigger atom than C in the same group. R is more
nonmetallic than Pe but more metallic than Ti.

Explaination: _____________________________________________________________________________________
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Henry Moseley
Henry Moseley who was a researcher at Rutherford’s laboratory. In 1913 Moseley used Rutherford’s work to
advance the understanding of the elements and solve the problem with Mendeleev’s periodic table. He explained that
organizing the elements by their weight did not always give a periodic alignment of their chemical properties. Moseley
noticed that shooting electrons at elements caused them to release x-rays at unique frequencies. He also noticed that
the frequency increased by a certain amount when the “positive charge” of the chosen element was higher. By arranging
the elements according to the square root of the frequency they emitted, he was able to draw out an arrangement of
elements that more correctly predicted periodic trends.
Some of his experimental evidence he gave to an existing hypothesis: that the elements’ atomic number, or place in the
periodic table, was uniquely tied to their “positive charge”, or the number of protons they had. This discovery allowed
for a better arrangement of the periodic table, and predicted elements that were not yet discovered. His method of
identifying elements by shooting electrons and looking at x-rays became a very useful tool in characterizing elements,
and is now called x-ray spectroscopy.

Synthesis of Elements
The invention of the device called cyclotron paved the way for transmuting one element into another artificially.
The high-energy particles that are produced from the cyclotron upon hitting heavy target nuclei produce heavier nuclei.
The bombarding of Mo with deuteron formed technicium which is the first artificially made element. Its name is derived
from the Greek word technetos which means artificial.
96
42 Mo + 21H —> 97
43 Tc + 10n
The Transuranic Elements
Transuranic elements are synthetic elements with atomic numbers higher than that of Uranium (Z = 92).
Neptunium (Z = 93) – synthesized by E.M. MacMillan in 1940
238
92 U + 10n —> 23993Np + 0-1ß

Plutonium (Z = 94)
238
92 U + 21H —> 23893Np + 210n
238
Np —> 23894Np+ 0-1ß
93

The Superheavy Elements

Superheavy elements are elements with atomic numbers beyond 103. These are produced by bombarding heavy
nuclear targets with accelerated heavy projectiles.
Bohrium (Z = 107) – projectile used was Cr

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 209
Bi + 5424Cr —> 261107Bh + 210n
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ACTIVITY 6
Direction: Research and read the following related texts. Then write a summary based on what you’ve understood from
the texts. Write your answer on a paper. (20 points)
a. Making New Elements
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/making-new-elements Retrieved: May 20, 2016
b. Discovery of the new chemical elements with numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118
http://www.jinr.ru/ posts/discovery- of-the-new-chemical-elements-with-numbers-113-115-117-and-118-2/
Retrieved: May 20, 2016

ACTIVITY 7 Short Essay (maximum of 5 sentences)

1) Dmitri Mendeleev is often regarded as the “Father of the Periodic Table”. Would you say that Henry Moseley
deserves the recognition more than him?
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2) Explain why the atomic number is called the “fingerprint” of elements.
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3) How would you relate alchemy to synthesis of new elements?
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Prepared by: Roselle S. Villaquer

Contact details: 09107969153/[email protected]