The Discovery and Development of Nuclear Technology Essay

The Discovery and Development of Nuclear Technology Man has always been interested in how the world around him works. He wondered about the structure of matter,of which his world, as well as our world, is made up. Countless scientists have been pondering that same question ever since the beginning of time. In this paper you will read about just a few of the men and women that broke the ground for the nuclear technology of today. One of the first people to do this was a Greek philosopher named Anaxagoras in five hundred years before Christ. He questioned what would happen if he cut in half a sample of matter, gold in his case, and then half the halves and continue doing this. Anaxagoras’ theory stated that it would be†¦show more content†¦It was not until the renaissance that the ideas of Aristotle began to be disputed and people started to accept the atomic theory of Democritus. One of the first people to speak out against Aristotle was Francis Bacon. Bacon criticized the scientific thought of the ancients because it relied too heavily on the philosophy behind things rather than experimental aspect of them. He did, however, side with Democritus because the minute experimentation pointed in that direction. Another key figure in the advancement of early atomic theory was Robert Boyle. Boyle ran experiments with gasses in pumps and he studied the behavior of the volumes of the gasses a s pressure was applied or taken away from it. He observed that when a great pressure is applied, the volume of the gas decreases. From these experiments he concluded that the gasses must be made up of small particle with a somewhat large space in between them. Those particles were thought to be atoms. Another great mind, Issac Newton, heard about Boyle’s experiments, reviewed the observations, and supported Boyle’s theory. After years groundbreaking work by these great minds on Democritus’ theory of an indestructible, eternal atom, it was finally accepted universally in 1895. Now that everyone was sure that there were atoms, people could now start to learn more about them and use them to better their daily lives. One of these men was a German scientist named Wilhelm Rontgen. His majorShow MoreRelatedNuclear Energy And Its Impact On The World1178 Words   |  5 Pages Nuclear energy has been a topic of world debate since its invention, with both clear upsides and downsides the topic of universal nuclear energy use has been subject to controversy and public scrutiny, but also scientific and economic praise. The field of nuclear energy and its driving forces were originally studied in the time around 1895 and the technology was mostly researched as a weapon for the military, around the time of 1935-1945 nuclear energy research witnessed a major boom. 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