John Dalton was a renowned chemist born in Eaglesfield, England on September 6th, 1766. Dalton is known for his teachings of James Prescott Joule, the atomic theory, and Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures. Dalton did much to contribute to the wide world of chemistry as a whole. Dalton is best known for his contribution to the modern atomic theory. Born in 1766, John Dalton faced many obstacles while studying chemistry. Although many obstacles were faced, Dalton still achieved becoming one of the best known chemists of all time. Before John Dalton, the majority of people did not understand the makeup of an element and why it could be held together. But Dalton came up with the modern atomic theory, explaining the basics of atoms. And also opening many doors to boundless amounts of research on the atom.
The idea that all matter is made up of small particles dates back to the 5th century where philosophers such as Leucippus and Democritus studied these particles. During this time atoms were thought to be too small to be seen, unchangeable, and indestructible. They came to the conclusion that atoms were solid and had no internal structure. This findings were the building blocks that Dalton used to base his modern atomic theory on. Without these philosophers Dalton may not have had an interest in the atom.
Although this idea has been around for centuries, ideas against the atomic theory have been around just as long. The philosopher Aristotle, argued against the existence of atoms all together. Roman Catholic theologians during the Middle Ages in Europe also backed up the argument of Aristotle. Overall, the atomic theory has been an on going argument for many centuries and is still being tested today.
Then, in 1808 John Dalton came ...
... middle of paper ...
...arch so many different theories and laws to test the consistency of the atom. Before Dalton, philosophers didn’t even know that atoms could be seen. With John Daltons discoveries we have been allowed to better understand the atom and all of the crucial elements that are combined to make it up. With this knowledge we have been able to understand the difference between a liquid, solid, and gas. If we have so recently been able to understand all of this new information, there is no telling what the future may hold for the research of the atom.
In conclusion, John Dalton is such an important figure in the world of chemistry. Without him we would not be where we are today. And scientists could not study what they have and are studying in our society today. Scientists all over are fortunate to be able to further study the same items that John Dalton studied so long ago
Attempts to organize the elements began in the late 1800’s. At this time, about sixty elements were known. Much advancement would have been impossible if the basic model of the atom was discovered. Great progress came from Dmitri Medeleev – a Russian chemist. His first draft of a periodic table was only the product of him attempting to summarize his knowledge of the elements. Although not all of Medeleev’s ideas were one-hundred percent accurate, they created a solid base to build upon. Marie and Pierre Curie; a married couple from Paris were successors of Medeleev. Their interests were radioactivity and discovered radium. The true pioneers of the periodic table were Ernest Rutherford and James Chadwick. Rutherford formed the hypothesis that, “An atom must have a concentrated positive center charge that contains most of the atom’s mass.” Following Rutherford, Chadwick exposed a segment of the nucleus that was had no charge: the neutron. With the basic knowledge of the structure of an atom, the tedious work of putting the rest of the puzzle together continued.
The cathode ray tube was invented in 1875 by the name of Sir Williams Crooke. Yet he wasn’t the one to make the big discovery. In 1897, a man by the name of J.J. Thompson conducted a series of experiments to prove the existence of subatomic particles. He wasn’t 100% correct with all of his claims he made but broke the theory John Dalton stated that the smallest form matter could be broken down to was an atom. Having shown the world that there was smaller than an atom, it later caused others to question and dive even deeper.
...the first version of the atomic theory, which then later allowed John Dalton to expand on the atomic theory to create a method of discerning atomic weight, was crucial in the development in the table. It was through finding the atomic weight of elements as well as classifying their properties that allowed Mendeleev to create his periodic table and discern possible new elements.
Dalton’s atomic theory, which stated “the atoms were tiny, indivisible, indestructible particles” (Bender), differed drastically from that of the Greeks’ in that it “wasn’t just a philosophical statement that there are atoms because there must be atoms” (Bender). Although Aristotle believed that there are four terrestrial elements, earth, water, air, and fire, Democratus believed that “a piece of a substance can be divided into smaller pieces of that substance until we get down to a fundamental level at which you can’t divide the substance up and still have pieces of that substance” (“Atoms”). Aristotle’s theory was popular, but incorrect; Democratus’s was closer to our current theory, yet he remained relatively unpopular and obscure. This demonstrates of the key way in which a personal point of view can, in fact, retard the pursuit of knowledge. The scientist with the better oratory abilities has his theories more widely accepted. Dalton’s own theory, which extrapolated upon four basic
and opened doors for later scientists that were in his field of organic synthesis. He was a
Although atomism certainly was not a new philosophy by the time Lucretius wrote, or even by the time of Rome’s ascension to power, the original propositions regarding the nature of matter were not enough to construct a philosophy similar to that presented by Lucretius. Over time, atomism had evolved from a binary view that the world consisted solely of atoms and void, ...
British chemist and physicist John Dalton theorised that matter is composed of spherical atoms (that are in motion) of different weights and are combined in ratios by weight.
In 1911, Ernest Rutherford found a very spectacular in such a small thing. Rutherford found that an atom has a microscopic charged nucleus. Empty space surrounds the nucleus. The nucleus is also surrounded by electrons. By this discovery Rutherford made the model of the atom.
Many scientists helped with this. In 465 B.C. Democritus named the atom “can’t be divided” (OI). He proposed that matter was made of atoms (Doc. 1). Later, Lavoisier introduced the Law of Conservation of Matter. It stated that matter couldn’t be created or destroyed. After that, John Dalton published the Atomic Theory of Matter in 1803 (Doc. 2). It said that matter is made of atoms that are too small to be seen by the naked eye, and that each type of matter is made of only one kind of atom (OI). J. J. Thomson observed electrons using cathode rays. A few years later, Ernest Rutherford bombarded an extremely thin piece of gold foil with positively charged alpha particles. Most of the protons passed through the foil, but some bounced off. Rutherford concluded that the atom must be composed of mostly empty space. He also realized that the alpha particles must have bounced off something else that had positive charge. The positively charged objects were protons. Neutrons were discovered by James Chadwick. To conclude, the theories of the atom have been modified a lot since the
She was not the type to base her idea of writings off others. Cavendish's first anthology, Poems, and Fancies, included the earliest version of her ideas on natural philosophy. Although English atomic theory in the seventeenth century attempted to explain all natural phenomena as matter in motion, in Cavendish's philosophy all atoms contained the same amount of matter but differed in size and shape; thus, earth atoms were square, water particles were round, atoms of air were long, and fire atoms were sharp. This led to Cavendish’s theory on disease, and how it was due to fighting between different atoms or there was too many one type of atom shape. However, Cavendish ended up rejecting her ideas on the theory of atoms. By 1665, when she published Philosophical and Physical Opinions, she had decided that if atoms were "Animated Matter," then they would have "Free-will and Liberty" and thus would always be at in a battle with one another and unable to cooperate in the creation of complex organisms and minerals. She had sent copies of her new ideas to the most famous scientists and celebrities of the time period. Although other philosophers had different theories, Cavendish continued to view all matter as composed of one material (Clairhout and Jung).
In 1803 this theory was finalised and stated that (1) all matter is made up of the smallest possible particles termed atoms, (2) atoms of a given element have unique characteristics and weight, and (3) three types of atoms exist: simple (elements), compound (simple molecules), and complex (complex molecules).
The idea of the atom started all the way back from the ancient Greece. What is sad about this is that one philosopher’s idea it was rejected by the rest of the philosophers of the time. Philosophers like Aristotle. The ancient Greeks did not have all the modern technology we have now and were not equipped to test their atomic theory. The theory they had hypothesized was if you keep dividing something, the smallest living thing had to be an atom.
The Atomic Theory began in roughly 400BC with Democritus in Ancient Greece and is universally believed to be correct today. Democritus who was born in 460 BC and died 370 BC and is known as the father of modern science. Democritus proclaimed that everything is made up of atoms. He continued his theory to say that atoms will always be in motion, between atoms there is empty space, atoms are unbreakable, there are an infinite number of atoms all different sizes and shapes. He also said that iron atoms are solid and strong and have hooks to lock them together, water atoms are smooth and slippery, salt atoms have sharp jagged edges because of its taste and air atoms are light and spiralling.
Things are very different from each other, and can be broken down into small groups inside itself, which was then noticed early by people, and Greek thinkers, about 400BC. Which just happened to use words like "element', and `atom' to describe the many different parts and even the smallest parts of matter. These ideas were around for over 2000 years while ideas such as `Elements' of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water to explain `world stuff' came and went. Much later, Boyle, an experimenter like Galileo and Bacon, was influenced much by Democritus, Gassendi, and Descartes, which lent much important weight to the atomic theory of matter in the 1600s. Although it was Lavoisier who had divided the very few elements known in the 1700's into four different classes, and then John Dalton made atoms even more believable, telling everyone that the mass of an atom was it's most important property. Then in the early 1800's Dobereiner noted that the similar elements often had relative atomic masses, and DeChancourtois made a cylindrical table of elements to display the periodic reoccurrence of properties. Cannizaro then determined atomic weights for the 60 or so elements known in the 1860s, and then a table was arranged by Newlands, with the many elements given a serial number in order of their atomic weights, of course beginning with Hydrogen. That made it clear that "the eighth element, starting from a given one, is a kind of a repeat of the first", which Newlands called the Law of Octaves.
Dalton’s atomic theory says that each element contained its own number of atoms. Each element had its own size and weight. Dalton’s idea said that all things are made of small bits of matter this bits of matter where too small to be seen even with a microscope. Scientist began to think these small bits of matter where responsible for chemical changes. They thought that when these bits of matter combined a chemical change took place. Dalton assumed that there was a special pattern in the elements and was partly responsible for the periodic table.