John Dalton: The Colorblind Quaker Who Gave Atomic Theory Its First Momentum

Gabrielle Birchak/ August 17, 2026/ Modern History/ 0 comments

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS

Today I’m feel­ing a bit sen­ti­men­tal, so I’m repost­ing my sec­ond pod­cast ever at Math Sci­ence His­to­ry from 2019, about the sto­ry of John Dal­ton, the self-taught Quak­er school teacher who gave us mod­ern atom­ic the­o­ry, mapped the mys­tery of col­or­blind­ness before any­one under­stood it, and became one of the most cel­e­brat­ed sci­en­tists of his era, all with­out ever attend­ing uni­ver­si­ty. From hum­ble begin­nings in a Cum­ber­land weav­ing vil­lage to being posthu­mous­ly hon­ored with full civic hon­ors in Man­ches­ter, this is the sto­ry of a man who saw the world dif­fer­ent­ly, quite lit­er­al­ly, and changed how we under­stand it for­ev­er. The Large Hadron Col­lid­er, the LHC, locat­ed at CERN’s Euro­pean Orga­ni­za­tion for Nuclear Research is just out­side of Gene­va, Switzerland.

It is the world’s largest par­ti­cle accel­er­a­tor with a diam­e­ter of five miles. In its deep, enor­mous mag­net­ic cave, oper­at­ing with the high­est ener­gy of all par­ti­cle accel­er­a­tors, it push­es two high-ener­gy par­ti­cle beams at the speed of light, careen­ing towards each oth­er until they col­lide. This sub­atom­ic dis­charge, in its glo­ry, pro­duces valu­able results that lead us for­ward to greater discoveries.

The LHC is one of over 30,000 par­ti­cle accel­er­a­tors in the world today, with the first cre­at­ed at Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Uni­ver­si­ty of Berke­ley in 1929, which was only five inch­es in diam­e­ter. How­ev­er, at one point, just a few hun­dred years ago, sub­atom­ic research was unheard of, as was atom­ic research. Enter John Dal­ton, Eng­lish chemist, physi­cist, and mete­o­rol­o­gist, the col­or­blind genius with a gen­uine Quak­er heart who would ush­er the world into atom­ic research.

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. Even though his fam­i­ly was real­ly fru­gal, he was for­tu­nate to get an edu­ca­tion from his father, who was a weaver, and from a fel­low Quak­er, John Fletch­er, who ran a pri­vate school in the near­by village.

At 15, Dal­ton moved to Kendall to join his broth­er in teach­ing at a Quak­er school. How­ev­er, Dal­ton was a Quak­er, and as a Quak­er, he was con­sid­ered to be a dis­senter. As a result, soci­ety barred him from attend­ing Eng­lish universities.

Regard­less, he was real­ly curi­ous, and he refused to accept the lim­its that soci­ety imposed on him. So, to con­tin­ue to feed his won­der, he got an infor­mal edu­ca­tion from John Goe, a blind philoso­pher who was also gift­ed in the sci­ences. In 1787, Dal­ton began a mete­o­ro­log­i­cal diary, and from that day for­ward until the day he passed away, he entered over 200,000 weath­er expo­si­tions and obser­va­tions into that diary.

Dur­ing his tenure in Kendall, Dal­ton dis­cov­ered that he was col­or­blind after he sent what he thought was gray stock­ings to his mom for her birth­day. When she got them, she was shocked. She wrote him say­ing that she could nev­er wear the scar­let red stock­ings that he bought her.

He asked his broth­er, who agreed with Dal­ton, yeah, they were gray. So, think­ing that his mom’s eye­sight was wan­ing, he asked her to ask the neigh­bors what col­or they thought the stock­ings were. Well, her friends con­firmed that, yes, they were indeed red.

Not very Quak­er-like. So, after real­iz­ing that he and his broth­er were col­or­blind, he delved exten­sive­ly into the con­cept that he called col­or­blind­ness, which would even­tu­al­ly be termed Dal­ton­ism. In 1793, Man­ches­ter need­ed this deter­mi­nate­ly curi­ous and pas­sion­ate teacher of so many subjects.

So, New Col­lege in Man­ches­ter appoint­ed him as a teacher of their acad­e­my in 1794. Also, the Man­ches­ter Lit­er­ary and Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety elect­ed him as a mem­ber, which actu­al­ly became a turn­ing point in his life because he start­ed writ­ing a lot of papers and read­ing them at the soci­ety. In 1800, as the uni­ver­si­ty’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion began to decline, Dal­ton resigned and suc­cess­ful­ly tran­si­tioned into tutor­ing to sup­ple­ment his income.

He con­tin­ued to research on col­or­blind­ness, mete­o­rol­o­gy, physics, and chem­istry. And the same year that he left the col­lege, his peers at the Man­ches­ter Lit­er­ary and Philo­soph­i­cal Soci­ety named him sec­re­tary. The fol­low­ing year, he pre­sent­ed a series of four essays to the soci­ety that pro­posed valu­able data and find­ings on the gas­es in the air.

As though mark­ing his claims on col­or­blind­ness and par­tial pres­sures was­n’t 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 to be 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, also known as nitro­gen, car­bon, and sulfur.

These five sim­ple nota­tions opened up a whole world of ele­men­tal cal­cu­la­tions for future gen­er­a­tions to dis­cov­er. If you want to see these nota­tions, you can vis­it my web­site at mathsciencehistory.com, and I’m going to pro­vide some nota­tions and some illus­tra­tions that he cre­at­ed, as well as some expla­na­tions behind some of his the­o­ries. We’ll be right back after a quick word from my advertisers.

So, back to the sto­ry. A lit­tle over a month after his obser­va­tions, on Octo­ber 23rd, 1803, Dal­ton pre­sent­ed his 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, he pre­sent­ed a new set of data con­sist­ing of 20 ele­ments. This data paved the way to ele­men­tal dis­cov­ery and a process to cat­e­go­rize chem­i­cal structures.

This new book was thor­ough and con­tained tables and tables of rel­e­vant and ben­e­fi­cial data, includ­ing, one, a table on ele­men­tal behav­ior under cer­tain tem­per­a­tures, two, a table on the expan­sions of water, solids, and gas­es, and, of course, three, his most famous table of ele­ments. In the final chap­ter of Chem­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy, chap­ter three, titled On Chem­i­cal Syn­the­sis, Dal­ton pre­sent­ed a thor­ough­ly pre­cise expla­na­tion on the atom­ic struc­ture and the build­ing blocks of mat­ter. In 1827, when he pub­lished his sec­ond vol­ume of work, his list of ele­ments increased to 36 elements.

From 1832 to 1844, he received numer­ous hon­ors and awards from uni­ver­si­ties and asso­ci­a­tions. As a Quak­er, he want­ed to dis­miss the over­whelm­ing acco­lades. But in 1832, he received an hon­orary doc­tor­ate of sci­ence from Oxford University.

Adorned with a bright red robe, Dal­ton jus­ti­fied that wear­ing the tra­di­tion­al robe was accept­able since his col­or­blind­ness could not allow him to see the col­or red any­how. In 1838, the Roy­al Man­ches­ter Insti­tu­tion erect­ed a stat­ue of Dal­ton. Despite his acco­lades and sin­cere admi­ra­tion, Dal­ton remained true to his Quak­er roots.

He was hum­ble, kind, altru­is­tic, dili­gent, and hard­work­ing. Still, with unre­lent­ing dis­re­gard, age came to call for him, beck­on­ing him to leave. True to his resilient nature, Dal­ton tried to ignore the request of age.

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’s no doubt that lead­ing up to his last moment of life, he served sci­ence well, but he also served his friends well. He had many friends.

He left a mark on the hearts of oth­ers with 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. 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.

It is for John Dal­ton that we can see into the future. Trav­el­ing down the cir­cu­lar cav­erns of the LHC’s giant vac­u­um, two thin beams of sub­atom­ic par­ti­cles accel­er­ate in oppo­site direc­tions. Faster and faster they move, in a pipe sheathed with super­con­duct­ing mag­nets, cooled in liq­uid heli­um at neg­a­tive 271 degrees Celsius.

Final­ly, they reach an adjoin­ing pipe, mov­ing at light speed toward a col­li­sion of dis­cov­ery. The detec­tors, one as large as a five-sto­ry build­ing, fol­lows the mil­lions of sub­atom­ic par­ti­cles as if they are micro­scop­ic fire­balls danc­ing in the night sky. The detec­tor observes their behav­iors, ana­lyz­ing and look­ing close­ly for the most short-lived par­ti­cles and mea­sur­ing the longer-lived particles.

This explo­sive dis­play of sub­atom­ic fire­works is col­or­ful and mes­mer­iz­ing, momen­tous and thrilling, beau­ti­ful and ever so sig­nif­i­cant, as if they know that they are cel­e­brat­ing John Dal­ton, the man who brought us clos­er to these dis­cov­er­ies. I’m Gabrielle Bertschak. This pod­cast has been brought to you by caffeine.

Deli­cious, won­der­ful, nec­tar of the gods caf­feine. Cof­fee, tea, cof­fee can­dy, you name it, I love it. Thank you for lis­ten­ing to Math Sci­ence History.

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