10.3: The Development of Atomic Theory

Concepts of Physical Science · LibreTexts

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    The Greek and Roman philosophers debated, discussed, and sometimes even attacked one another. But the mode of discovery was talk. There was no experimentation—the idea had not yet been thought of. So science did not develop very far, and there was no reliable way to establish what was true and what was false.

    John Dalton

    While it must be assumed that many more scientists, philosophers, and others studied the composition of matter after Democritus, a major leap forward in our understanding of the composition of matter took place in the 1800s with the work of the British scientist John Dalton. He started teaching school at age twelve, and was primarily known as a teacher. In his twenties, he moved to the growing city of Manchester, where he was able to pursue some scientific studies. He did work in several areas of science including meteorology and the discovery of a gas law. He is most well known for atomic theory, which we will be discussing within this section. When he died, over 40,000 people in Manchester marched at his funeral.

    portrait of John Dalton
    Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): John Dalton. (Credit: Henry Roscoe (author), William Henry Worthington (engraver), and Joseph Allen (painter); Source:Wikimedia; License: Public Domain)

    In the subsections that follow, we will explore various laws of nature which together along with Dalton's own observation allowed him to make a scientific theory for the existence of atoms that was, in fact, based on observations of the world around him.

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