Historical Development of Atomic Structure The idea behind the "atom" goes back to the Ancient Greek society, where scientists believed that all matter was made of smaller, more fundamental particles called elements. They called these particles atoms, meaning "not divisible." Then came the chemists and physicists of the 16th and 17th centuries who discovered various formulae of various salts and water, hence discovering the idea of a molecule. Then, in 1766 was born a man named John Dalton born in England. He is known as the father of atomic theory because he is the one who made it quantitative, meaning he discovered many mass