John Dalton: The Man who Ushered in Atomic Research

Gabriellebirchak/ September 23, 2019/ Late Modern History, Modern History, Uncategorized

John Dal­ton was born in Eagles­field, Eng­land on Sep­tem­ber 6, 1766. His par­ents raised him as a Quak­er with earnest val­ues: to live one’s life, not on a set of beliefs or utter­ances of God, but rather to exist as a tes­ti­mo­ny to the world. His fam­i­ly taught him that an individual’s exis­tence should give mean­ing to hard work, humil­i­ty, altru­ism, kind­ness, sim­plic­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty, tol­er­ance and equal­i­ty. Though his fam­i­ly was extreme­ly fru­gal, he was for­tu­nate to receive an edu­ca­tion from his father, who was a weaver, and from a fel­low Quak­er, John Fletch­er, who ran a pri­vate school in a vil­lage near­by. Through this for­tune, Dal­ton became a pre­co­cious young man with an insa­tiable appetite for knowl­edge who, by the time he was 12-years-old, taught at a local school to help sup­port his family. 

At 15, Dal­ton moved to Kendal to join his broth­er in teach­ing at a Quak­er school. He was acute and eager to learn. How­ev­er, Dal­ton was a Quak­er, and as a Quak­er, he was a dis­senter and was not encour­aged to pur­sue high­er edu­ca­tion: soci­ety barred him from attend­ing Eng­lish uni­ver­si­ties. Nonethe­less, his curi­ous nature inspired him to seek acad­e­mia, regard­less of the lim­its that soci­ety imposed on him. Thus, to con­tin­ue to feed his won­der, he received infor­mal instruc­tion from John Gough, a blind philoso­pher gift­ed in the sci­ences. Dal­ton was always observ­ing, always tak­ing notes, always ask­ing ques­tions and so, in 1787, Dal­ton began a mete­o­ro­log­i­cal diary. From that day for­ward, until the day he passed away, he entered over 200,000 weath­er expo­si­tions and obser­va­tions into that journal. 

Colorblindness

It was dur­ing his tenure that Dal­ton dis­cov­ered that he was col­or­blind. One day, while walk­ing the streets of Kendal, he saw a shop win­dow with a sign that said, “Silk, and newest fash­ion.” His mother’s birth­day was com­ing up, and so he con­sid­ered stock­ings as an ide­al gift. Aware that she always wore wool, home­made, knit­ted, dowdy stock­ings, with earnest inten­tions he picked out what he thought to be a somber Quak­er-appro­pri­ate col­or for his moth­er, which would even­tu­al­ly shock the family.

When she received the gift, she was sur­prised. She informed Dal­ton that she could nev­er wear her new stock­ings, as they were scar­let red. Con­fused, Dal­ton ver­i­fied with his broth­er that he bought drea­ry gray stock­ings. Think­ing that his mother’s eye­sight was wan­ing, he asked her to ask the neigh­bors what col­or they thought the stock­ings were. Her friends con­firmed that they were red. He real­ized that the prob­lem in see­ing col­ors could be due to his and his brother’s eyes. As such, as the pas­sion­ate­ly curi­ous man that he was, Dal­ton delved exten­sive­ly into the con­cept that he called col­or­blind­ness, which would even­tu­al­ly be termed Daltonism. 

In 1793, Man­ches­ter need­ed this deter­mined­ly pruri­ent man and pas­sion­ate teacher of so many sub­jects. New Col­lege was the per­fect name for a col­lege with a new vision, which was to pro­vide high­er edu­ca­tion to bright, non-con­form­ing dis­senters. Thus, with his exper­tise, knowl­edge, and tremen­dous insight, New Col­lege in Man­ches­ter appoint­ed him as a teacher of their acad­e­my. Though new to this fast-grow­ing city, as a Quak­er with nat­ur­al net­work­ing skills, he thrived in the sci­en­tif­ic and philo­soph­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty. As a result, in 1794, the Man­ches­ter Lit­er­ary and Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety elect­ed him as a mem­ber. A few weeks lat­er, on Octo­ber 31, 1794, he pre­sent­ed and pub­lished his first paper and find­ings on col­or­blind­ness, called Extra­or­di­nary Facts Relat­ing to the Vision of Colours. Dal­ton pre­sent­ed ground­break­ing research on col­or­blind­ness, sup­port­ed by his belief that the dis­col­oration of the aque­ous humor, which is the liq­uid medi­um of the eye­ball, is what caus­es col­or­blind­ness. On that day, he unknow­ing­ly claimed his role as a fore­fa­ther in the field of col­or­blind­ness as he spent many years study­ing Dal­ton­ism. He was so enthralled and devot­ed to this afflic­tion that he request­ed, in his will, that his assis­tant dis­sect his eyes to con­firm his theories. 

After his pass­ing, his assis­tant, Joseph Ran­some, fol­lowed through on his promise. Sci­en­tists dis­proved most of Dalton’s the­o­ries show­ing that col­or­blind­ness is not caused by the dis­col­oration of the aque­ous humor, but rather due to insuf­fi­cient sens­es in the eyes. How­ev­er, one part of his the­o­ry did hold up: that col­or­blind­ness is genet­ic. Thus, even in his pass­ing, Dal­ton con­tin­ued to serve his sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty with cal­cu­la­ble results. 

Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures

In 1800, as the University’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion declined, Dal­ton resigned from his posi­tion and suc­cess­ful­ly tran­si­tioned into tutor­ing to sup­ple­ment his income. He con­tin­ued his research on col­or­blind­ness, mete­o­rol­o­gy, physics, and chem­istry, and the same year he left the col­lege, his peers at the Man­ches­ter Lit­er­ary and Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety named him Sec­re­tary. It was a flour­ish­ing time for Dal­ton. He was relent­less and pas­sion­ate when it came to research, and this served him well. Thus, the fol­low­ing year he pre­sent­ed the series of four essays to the Soci­ety titled Exper­i­men­tal Essays on the con­sti­tu­tion of mixed gas­es; on the force of steam or vapour of water and oth­er liq­uids in dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­tures, both in Tor­ri­cel­lian vac­u­um and in air; on evap­o­ra­tion; and on the expan­sion of gas­es by heat. Each essay pro­posed valu­able data and find­ings on the gas­es in the air. 

• The first essay pro­pos­es uni­for­mi­ty in atmos­pher­ic com­po­si­tion at all elevations. 
• The sec­ond essay intro­duces cal­cu­la­tions for mois­ture in a mea­sured vol­ume of air. This par­tic­u­lar essay was, years lat­er, fur­ther sup­port­ed when sci­en­tist Michael Fara­day showed that low tem­per­a­tures and intense pres­sures reduce all elas­tic flu­ids to liquids. 
• In the third essay, he states that the quan­ti­ty of water evap­o­rat­ed is exact­ly pro­por­tion­al to the vapor pressure. 
• The fourth essay he pro­posed that all elas­tic flu­ids under the same pres­sure expand equal­ly by heat. This essay describes Dalton’s Law of Par­tial Pres­sures, which is com­mon­ly used in a mix­ture of non-react­ing gas­es to indi­cate that the total pres­sure exert­ed is equal to the sum of the par­tial pres­sures of the indi­vid­ual gases.

Dalton’s Atomic Theory

As though mark­ing his claims on col­or­blind­ness and par­tial pres­sures was not enough, Dal­ton forged a notable path into atom­ic the­o­ry. On Sep­tem­ber 3, 1803, Dal­ton titled a page in his note­book, “Obser­va­tions on the ulti­mate par­ti­cles of bod­ies and their com­bi­na­tions.” Though now con­sid­ered archa­ic, he pro­posed that the atom is the small­est part that takes place in chem­i­cal reac­tions. He then list­ed five cir­cu­lar scrib­bles with nota­tions and atom­ic weights. These nota­tions were the very first Table of Ele­ments, which, con­sist­ed of only five ele­ments, Hydro­gen, Oxy­gen, Azote (Nitro­gen), Car­bon, and Sul­fur. These five sim­ple nota­tions opened up a whole world of ele­men­tal cal­cu­la­tions for future gen­er­a­tions to discover. 

A lit­tle over a month after his obser­va­tions, on Octo­ber 23, 1803, Dal­ton read a paper to the Man­ches­ter Lit­er­ary and Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety titled, “Essay on the Absorp­tion of Gas­es (by Water).” This essay con­clud­ed with his pre­sen­ta­tion of 21 “sim­ple and com­pound ele­ments,” all arranged by atom­ic mass. 

In 1808, Dal­ton pub­lished his first vol­ume of work on the ele­ments enti­tled A New Sys­tem of Chem­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy. In this pub­lish­ing, he pre­sent­ed a new set of data con­sist­ing of 20 ele­ments. Even though some of the atom­ic mass­es were incor­rect, this was sig­nif­i­cant progress because it began to pave the way to ele­men­tal dis­cov­ery and a process in which to cat­e­go­rize their chem­i­cal struc­tures. Though his book uti­lized the foun­da­tion­al work of the Greek “Laugh­ing Philoso­pher” Dem­ocri­tus, Jere­mi­ah Ben­jamin Richter, and French chemists Antoine Lavoisi­er and Joseph Proust, his book was inno­v­a­tive and rev­o­lu­tion­ary. This new book was thor­ough and con­tained tables and tables of rel­e­vant and ben­e­fi­cial data, includ­ing a table on ele­men­tal behav­ior under cer­tain tem­per­a­tures, a table on the expan­sions of water, solids, and gas­es and, of course, his most famous Table of the Elements. 

Also true to his nature as a math­e­mati­cian, he pro­duced valu­able equa­tions to assist in the peer review of his find­ings. Final­ly, like a con­clud­ing pre­sen­ta­tion to a drum roll and an announce­ment, in the final chap­ter of Chem­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy, Chap­ter Three, titled On Chem­i­cal Syn­the­sis, Dal­ton pre­sent­ed a thor­ough­ly pre­cise expla­na­tion of the atom­ic struc­ture and the build­ing blocks of mat­ter. In his fly­er for this his­tor­i­cal­ly essen­tial book, he artic­u­lates, “The third chap­ter is on Chem­i­cal Syn­the­sis; and tends to place the whole sci­ence of Chem­istry upon a new, and more sim­ple, basis than it has been upon heretofore.” 

Final­ly, in 1827, when he pub­lished his sec­ond vol­ume of work, his list of ele­ments increased to 36 ele­ments. These unique designs were Dalton’s rare and orig­i­nal designs. How­ev­er, because they were unique and non-uni­form, they were chal­leng­ing for his peers and stu­dents to remem­ber. As such, this 1827 pub­lish­ing is the only pre­sen­ta­tion of these ele­ments in this fashion. 

Schol­ars and sci­en­tists over the years have eval­u­at­ed his the­o­ries and have set them forth as follows:

DALTON’S THEORY

Com­pounds are com­posed of atoms of more than one element. 

WHAT THIS THEORY MEANS

If we have ele­ment X and ele­ment Y, when they are com­bined, they cre­ate com­pound XY.

---

DALTON’S THEORY 

All the atoms of a giv­en ele­ment are iden­ti­cal to the oth­er atoms in the same element. 

WHAT THIS THEORY MEANS 

For ele­ment A, we have atoms of ele­ment A, called a. All a’s are identical.

---

DALTON’S THEORY 

Atoms are excep­tion­al­ly small and indi­vis­i­ble, and they com­prise every­thing in nature. Since atoms are indi­vis­i­ble, and they can­not be cre­at­ed or destroyed, a chem­i­cal reac­tion is either a com­bi­na­tion, sep­a­ra­tion or rearrange­ment of atoms.

WHAT THIS THEORY MEANS 

Atoms can­not be divid­ed, atoms can­not be destroyed or cre­at­ed, atoms cre­ate every­thing, and atoms do not change in a chem­i­cal reac­tion. As such, mass is con­served, val­i­dat­ing Newton’s Law of Con­ser­va­tion of Mass. 

---

DALTON’S THEORY 

All atoms of a giv­en ele­ment are iden­ti­cal. These atoms have the same size, mass, and chem­i­cal prop­er­ties. How­ev­er, the atoms of one ele­ment vary in size and mass from the atoms of all oth­er elements. 

WHAT THIS THEORY MEANS 

Let’s say we have ele­ment A and ele­ment B, with atoms a and b. All a atoms will always look like oth­er a atoms, and all b atoms will look like oth­er b atoms. When we com­bine them to make com­pound AB, a remains as a, and b remains as b. In oth­er words, Hydro­gen atoms are not the same as Oxy­gen atoms.

---

DALTON’S THEORY 

In a com­pound, for any two ele­ments present, the ratio of the num­ber of atoms com­bined is either an inte­ger or a sim­ple frac­tion, like 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, etc. 

WHAT THIS THEORY MEANS 

For com­pound AB, its ratio is 2:1. In oth­er words, for every two a atoms, we have one b atom. This the­o­ry is the Law of Mul­ti­ple Pro­por­tions, which states that if we have two com­pounds of the same two ele­ments, and if we hold the mass of one of those ele­ments con­stant, then we can explain the ratio of the mass­es of the oth­er ele­ment in small whole numbers.

---

Dalton’s atom­ic the­o­ries are astound­ing in that they still hold true for chem­i­cal reac­tions. The dif­fer­ence today is that, as tech­nol­o­gy has devel­oped and allowed us to cre­ate vac­u­ums in which to study the atom, we have no doubt dis­cov­ered an exten­sive col­lec­tion of sub­atom­ic par­ti­cles. Fur­ther­more, instead of not­ing that all ele­ments of a giv­en ele­ment have the same mass, sci­en­tists today note that all atoms of a giv­en ele­ment have the same atom­ic num­ber, which is the num­ber of pro­tons in the nucle­us of the atoms. Also, in a nuclear reac­tion, atoms can be destroyed. Fur­ther­more, an atom can change into anoth­er type of atom by cap­tur­ing a sub­atom­ic par­ti­cle. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to note that this is only true for nuclear reac­tions. Thus, for all chem­i­cal reac­tions, over 200 years lat­er, Dalton’s the­o­ries still hold true. 

Though Dalton’s con­tri­bu­tion to sci­ence is tremen­dous­ly astound­ing in that his con­cepts still hold true for chem­i­cal reac­tions, what we often do not read about in sci­ence books is Dalton’s con­tri­bu­tion to his com­mu­ni­ty and his val­ue as a cher­ished friend among his peers. As a Quak­er, he knew the impor­tance of com­mu­nion and trea­sured friend­ships. His approach­a­bil­i­ty and con­stant need to share his ever-devel­op­ing sci­en­tif­ic rev­e­la­tions served as a tremen­dous tool to his success. 

His social reach cov­ered many miles, as he main­tained con­sis­tent com­mu­ni­ca­tion, writ­ing let­ters to his friends. There is no doubt, as a man who exist­ed to be a tes­ti­mo­ny of his val­ues, that he tru­ly did respect and cher­ish his friends. Thus, always pref­ac­ing his let­ters with “Respect­ed Friend,” he shared his rev­e­la­tions, thoughts, and ideas, as though he were ban­ter­ing with them in per­son, to break through to his eure­ka moments. Fur­ther­more, when each of his works came to com­ple­tion, he would send let­ters and fly­ers, pre­sent­ing his work to his asso­ciates, friends, and col­leagues, shar­ing the news about his lat­est work, encour­ag­ing them to buy his books. Thus, his innate Quak­er tal­ents as a net­work­er served as an ide­al plat­form from which to mar­ket his books. 

Dal­ton was a devot­ed and esteemed mem­ber of the Man­ches­ter Lit­er­ary and Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety for 50 years. As such, in 1817, the Soci­ety appoint­ed Dal­ton as Pres­i­dent. In 1822, the Roy­al Soci­ety offered him an elect­ed mem­ber­ship, which, due to his Quak­er val­ues and his desire to avoid pub­lic recog­ni­tion, he turned down. Despite the rejec­tion, the Roy­al Soci­ety, in 1826, award­ed him a gold medal for his sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies. His pop­u­lar­i­ty con­tin­ued to soar, and in 1832, despite his desire to dis­miss the over­whelm­ing acco­lades, he humbly received an hon­orary Doc­tor­ate of Sci­ence from Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty. Adorned with a bright, red robe, Dal­ton jus­ti­fied that his wear­ing of the tra­di­tion­al robe was accept­able since his col­or­blind­ness could not allow him to see the col­or red anyhow. 

That same year, the British Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Sci­ence announced, at a meet­ing in Cam­bridge, that the King bestowed Dal­ton with a pen­sion of £150, which, three years lat­er, was raised to £300. Though this would have giv­en him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to live out his days com­fort­ably, Dal­ton con­tin­ued to work dili­gent­ly on his research and discoveries. 

From 1834 to 1844, John Dalton’s pop­u­lar­i­ty grew among peers, in uni­ver­si­ties, in lab­o­ra­to­ries and even in house­holds as acad­e­mies and asso­ci­a­tions bestowed him with hon­ors and recog­ni­tion. The Insti­tute of France enlist­ed him as a cor­re­spond­ing mem­ber, the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Arts and Sci­ences pro­cured him as a For­eign Hon­orary Mem­ber, and Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty offered him an hon­orary Doc­tor­ate. How­ev­er, like the col­leagues who claimed him bril­liant, and like the insti­tutes who exalt­ed him as hon­or­able, his years pos­sessed his body as his age began its recla­ma­tion back to the Earth. In 1837, Dal­ton suf­fered a stroke. Though he sur­vived this phys­i­cal blow to his body, the occlu­sion imposed Dal­ton with a speech imped­i­ment. Nev­er­the­less, he per­sist­ed with his research, his curios­i­ty, and his work. 

In 1838, the Roy­al Man­ches­ter Insti­tu­tion erect­ed a stat­ue of Dal­ton. To be hon­ored while still alive was such a pro­found acknowl­edg­ment that Dal­ton no doubt deserved, as a valu­able sci­en­tist and as a cher­ished friend to the com­mu­ni­ty. Despite his acco­lades and sin­cere admi­ra­tion, he remained true to his Quak­er roots: hum­ble, kind, altru­is­tic, dili­gent, and hard-work­ing. Still, with unre­lent­ing dis­re­gard, age came to call for him, beck­on­ing him to leave. True to his resilient nature, Dal­ton ignored the requests of age. Thus, with his last ounce of resource­ful­ness and intrigue, he entered a mete­o­ro­log­i­cal obser­va­tion in his note­book on July 26, 1844. The next day, he took his last breath. 

There is no doubt that lead­ing up to his last moment of life he served sci­ence well. Sci­ence knew that and sci­ence reward­ed him ten­fold with the grat­i­tude in the form of hon­ors and friend­ships. How­ev­er, John Dal­ton did not just leave his hon­ors and works behind. He also left a mark on the hearts of oth­ers with the salu­ta­tion of “Respect­ed Friend” and a con­stant reminder that each per­son has some­thing valu­able in the world to offer. His rev­er­ence for oth­ers was made evi­dent by the out­pour­ing of love and grief that fol­lowed his pass­ing. For, at his civic funer­al, the Annals of Man­ches­ter not­ed that over 40,000 peo­ple came from great dis­tances to pay their respects to a man who served his life in the name of science.