Over the past few centuries, our understanding of the atom has come a long way. However, the common trait that all our scientific discoveries share is our reliance on models to understand them. No less can be said for chemistry. We try to encapsulate the simplicity and elegance of nature through models, and behind these models are simple and elegant ideas. As curtly explained by renowned chemist Peter Atkins, there are nine such ideas that are the foundation of modern chemistry. My goal with this art project was to depict how some of these ideas underlie our understanding of chemistry and, more notably, the atom, the models we conceive for which being largely dependent on these big ideas.

As a general outline, my artwork depicts the evolution of the atomic model in analogy to Rudolph Zallinger's "March of Progress" diagram, which shows the evolution of man. The first of the five main atomic models I presented is John Dalton's "billiard ball" model. At that time, the fundamental building blocks of matter were literally thought of as little blocks, or balls, of matter, each different size representing a different element. This is followed by J.J. Thomson's "plum pudding" model. After much evidence of the atom containing particles of different electric charge, it was theorized that an atom was an orb of positively charged matter, embedded with negatively charged particles, or electrons. Then came Ernest Rutherford's "planetary" model. After finding evidence for the both the vast emptiness of an atom and the existence of a positively charged nucleus at every atom's center, the idea of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons came about. This resulted in a model where the nucleus of an atom, composed of neutrons and protons, was orbited by electrons. However, this view was enhanced by the development of quantum theory, which brought about Niels Bohr's "shell" model. In this model, electrons can only occupy specific energy states and can make transitions between these energy levels when absorbing or emitting photons of light. Lastly, the most modern model of the atom that I depicted was Erwin Schrödinger's quantum mechanical model. In this model, the idea of definite electron orbits is abandoned, and is instead replaced by orbitals, probability clouds of where the electrons of an atom are most likely to be. Clearly, the way scientists have thought about atoms over the years has changed drastically. However, there is one underlying feature of their understanding of the universe that has been the base of all developments in chemistry: matter is atomic.

Although this may seem blatantly obvious and almost redundant to state, it is the utter bedrock of chemistry, and is at the core of all the other big ideas in chemistry. This is therefore also the idea that is the bedrock of my artwork, and was the only idea depicted in my representation of both the "billiard ball" and the "plum pudding" model.

Through the "planetary model," another big idea that I portrayed was that elements display periodicity. It is absolutely amazing that the elements can be so neatly organized in the periodic table, where patterns can be periodically found between them in different ways. Likewise, certain properties of the elements vary within one period or one column, which are periodic across each period or column. If you look closely, you will notice that I have depicted the lithium atom and the fluorine atom. This was no arbitrary choice. These two elements are located in the second period of the periodic table, and based on their relative positions, their properties can be relatively compared. For example, they have a high tendency to react not only because lithium is an alkali metal and fluorine is a halogen, but also because of fluorine's high electronegativity. These are reactions that are predictable thanks to the periodicity of the elements.

With the "shell" model, I depicted the idea that energy is conserved, namely by portraying the energy levels in the hydrogen atom. The law of conservation of energy states that the net change in energy of a closed system is always zero. This is indeed the case with the hydrogen atom. Upon absorbing a correct amount of energy from a photon of light, for example, hydrogen's lone electron will enter an excited state with higher energy from the ground state. Due to the electron's instability because of the absorbed photon, the electron will quickly emit one or more photons until it has returned to the ground state, with the lowest amount of energy possible. The size of the "gap" between the energy levels that the electron descends to upon the emission event determines the wavelength, or color, of light emitted. Before the absorption and after the emission, the net change in the atom's energy remained zero. Furthermore, even if the photon were to be energetic enough to ionize the atom, the excess energy would be carried off as the ejected electron's kinetic energy, which is the energy that the atom now lacks. In the first case, only the atom was considered as the closed system, which is a limited case. However, when considering the universe as a whole, which is the ultimate closed system, no energy will ever be lost. It can be transformed or transferred, but it can never truly vanish.

The final model that I depicted, the quantum mechanical model, finely captures two last big ideas, namely that chemical bonds form when electrons pair, and molecular shape. The goal of all unstable atoms, that is, atoms not having a complete valence shell, is to lower their potential energy and thus become more stable. This is usually done either by sharing, donating, or accepting electrons from another atom. This is what I tried to depict with this part of the artwork. The center atom could be anything from the 4A column of the periodic table (i.e. carbon, silicon, germanium, etc.) and the atoms at the ends are hydrogen atoms. This molecule (which could either be methane, silane, germane, etc.) has a tetrahedral structure, which is crucial for the stability of the molecule, since it wants to have the lowest potential energy possible. The importance of these two big ideas goes beyond the realm of atoms. If atoms did not form bonds and if molecules did not have the shapes they did, the formation of any sort of macroscopic matter would not exist. Neither stars nor any kind of life forms, including us, would exist.

Therefore, it is evident that the big ideas of chemistry are not only fundamental to chemistry. They are much, much grander than that. As atoms are the fundamental building blocks of matter, the nine big ideas in chemistry are the fundamental keys not only to life, but also to the entire universe. So long as there are new ideas to ponder and models to conceive, the nine big ideas in chemistry will carry on, no matter where chemistry, or even science as a whole, may take us.