Dalton's atomic theory

The postulates of Dalton's atomic theory: which points do we still use today, and what
have we learned since Dalton?
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Key Points
Dalton's atomic theory was the first complete attempt
to describe all matter in terms of atoms and their properties.
Dalton based his theory on the law of conservation of
mass and the law of constant composition.
The first part of his theory states that all matter is
made of atoms, which are indivisible.
The second part of the theory says all atoms of a
given element are identical in mass and properties.
The third part says compounds are combinations of
two or more different types of atoms.
The fourth part of the theory states that a chemical
reaction is a rearrangement of atoms.
Parts of the theory had to be modified based on the
discovery of subatomic particles and isotopes.

Chemists ask questions.

Chemistry is full of unanswered questions. One of the first
questions people have been asking since ancient times
is What is the world made of?

That is, if we were to zoom in ~100000000000 timesthat is

11 zeros!on the skin of your fingertip, what would we see?
Would that look any different from zooming in on, say, an
apple? If we then cut up the apple into tinier and tinier pieces
using an imaginary tiny knife, would we reach a point where
the pieces could no longer be cut any smaller? What would
those pieces look like, and would they still have apple
properties?

The answers to these questions are fundamental to modern

chemistry, and chemists didn't agree on the answer until a
few hundred years ago. Thanks to scientists such as John
Dalton, modern chemists think of the world in terms of
atoms. Even if we can't see atoms with our naked eye,
properties of matter such as color, phase (e.g., solid, liquid,
gas), and even smell come from interactions on an atomic
level. This article will discuss John Dalton's atomic theory,
which was the first complete attempt to describe all matter in
terms of atoms and their properties.

Basis for Dalton's theory

Dalton based his theory on two laws: the law of conservation
of mass and the law of constant composition.

The law of conservation of mass says that matter is not

created or destroyed in a closed system. That means if we
have a chemical reaction, the amount of each element must
be the same in the starting materials and the products. We
use the law of conservation of mass every time we balance
equations!
 The crystal lattice of sodium chloride shows the sodium and
chloride ions in a 1:1 ratio.
A chemist thinks of table salt as sodium and chloride ions arranged in a crystal lattice
structure. Image credit: "Image of salt" by OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology, CC-BY-
NC-SA 4.0.

The law of constant composition says that a pure

compound will always have the same proportion of the same
elements. For example, table salt, which has the molecular
formula \text{NaCl}NaClN, a, C, l, contains the same
proportions of the elements sodium and chlorine no matter
how much salt you have or where the salt came from. If we
were to combine some sodium metal and chlorine gaswhich
I wouldn't recommend doing at homewe could make more
table salt which will have the same composition.

Concept check: A time-travelling scientist from the early

1700s decides to run the following experiment: he takes a 10
gram sample of ethanol (\text{CH}_3 \text{CH}_2 \text
{OH}CH3CH2OHC, H, start subscript, 3, end subscript, C,
H, start subscript, 2, end subscript, O, H) and burns it in the
presence of oxygen in an open beaker. After the reaction is
done, the beaker is empty. Does this result violate the law of
conservation of mass?
[Show answer]
\text{CO}_2(g)C, O, start subscript, 2, end subscript, left
parenthesis, g, right parenthesis\text H_2 \text O(g)H,
start subscript, 2, end subscript, O, left parenthesis, g, right
parenthesis

Dalton's atomic theory

Part 1: All matter is made of atoms.
Dalton hypothesized that the law of conservation of mass and
the law of definite proportions could be explained using the
idea of atoms. He proposed that all matter is made of tiny
indivisible particles called atoms, which he imagined as
"solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particle(s)".

It is important to note that since Dalton did not have the

necessary instruments to see or otherwise experiment on
individual atoms, he did not have any insight into whether
they might have any internal structure. We might visualize
Dalton's atom as a piece in a molecular modeling kit, where
different elements are spheres of different sizes and colors.
While this is a handy model for some applications, we now
know that atoms are far from being solid spheres.

Part 2: All atoms of a given element

are identical in mass and properties.
Dalton proposed that every single atom of an element, such
as gold, is the same as every other atom of that element. He
also noted that the atoms of one element differ from the
atoms of all other elements. Today, we still know this to be
mostly true. A sodium atom is different from a carbon atom.
Elements may share some similar boiling points, melting
points, and electronegativities, but no two elements have the
same exact set of properties.
[Why is this only MOSTLY true?]
Picture of a molecular modeling kit including multiple types of
plastic spheres in different colors that represent elements and
stick-like plastic "bonds".
A basic molecular modeling kit, including spherical atoms of different size and color that
can be connected by sticks to represent chemical bonds. Image credit: "Photo of
modeling kit" by Sonia on Wikimedia Commons,CC-BY 3.0

Part 3: Compounds are combinations

of two or more different types of
atoms.
In the third part of Dalton's atomic theory, he proposed that
compounds are combinations of two or more different types
of atoms. An example of such a compound is table salt. Table
salt is a combination of two separate elements with unique
physical and chemical properties. The first, sodium, is a
highly reactive metal. The second, chlorine, is a toxic gas.
When they react, the atoms combine in a 1:1 ratio to form
white crystals of \text{NaCl}NaClN, a, C, l, which we can
sprinkle on our food.

Since atoms are indivisible, they will always combine in

simple whole number ratios. Therefore, it would not make
sense to write a formula such
as\text{Na}_{0.5}\text{Cl}_{0.5}Na0.5Cl0.5N, a, start
subscript, 0, point, 5, end subscript, C, l, start subscript, 0,
point, 5, end subscript because you can't have half of an
atom!

Part 4: A chemical reaction is a

rearrangement of atoms.
In the fourth and final part of Dalton's atomic theory, he
suggested that chemical reactions don't destroy or create
atoms. They merely rearranged the atoms. Using our salt
example again, when sodium combines with chlorine to make
salt, both the sodium and chlorine atoms still exist. They
simply rearrange to form a new compound.

What have we learned since Dalton

proposed his theory?
The short answer: a lot! For instance, we now know that
atoms are not indivisibleas stated in part onebecause
they are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The
modern picture of an atom is very different from Dalton's
"solid, massy" particle. In fact, experiments by Ernest
Rutherford, Hans Geiger, and Ernest Marsden showed that
atoms are mostly made up of empty space.
 Image of tungsten diselenide,\text{WSe}_2WSe2W, S, e,
start subscript, 2, end subscript.
Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) allows us to see the atomic level
structure of tungsten selenide, WSe_22start subscript, 2, end subscript. Image
credit: "STEM image" by Kazu Suenaga et al. on Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
 Part two of Dalton's theory had to be modified after mass
spectrometry experiments demonstrated that atoms of the
same element can have different masses because the
number of neutrons can vary for different isotopes of the
same element. For more on isotopes, you can watch this
video on atomic number, mass number, and isotopes.

Despite these caveats, Dalton's atomic theory is still mostly

true, and it forms the framework of modern chemistry.
Scientists have even developed the technology to see the
world on an atomic level!
[Attributions and references]

1.
2.

Summary
Dalton's atomic theory was the first complete attempt to
describe all matter in terms of atoms and their properties.
Dalton based his theory on the law of conservation of
mass and the law of constant composition.
The first part of his theory states that all matter is made
of atoms, which are indivisible.
The second part of the theory says all atoms of a given
element are identical in mass and properties.
The third part says compounds are combinations of two
or more different types of atoms.
The fourth part of the theory states that a chemical
reaction is a rearrangement of atoms.
 Parts of the theory had to be modified based on the
existence of subatomic particles and isotopes.
Dalton's Atomic Theory

It was in the early 1800s that John Dalton, an observer of weather and
discoverer of color blindness among other things, came up with his atomic
theory. Let's set the stage for Dalton's work. Less than twenty years earlier,
in the 1780's, Lavoisier ushered in a new chemical era by making careful
quantitative measurements which allowed the compositions of compounds
to be determined with accuracy. By 1799 enough data had been
accumulated for Proust to establish the Law of Constant Composition ( also
called the Law of Definite Proportions). In 1803 Dalton noted that oxygen
and carbon combined to make two compounds. Of course, each had its own
particular weight ratio of oxygen to carbon (1.33:1 and 2.66:1), but also, for
the same amount of carbon, one had exactly twice as much oxygen as the
other. This led him to propose the Law of Simple Multiple Proportions,
which was later verified by the Swedish chemist Berzelius. In an attempt to
explain how and why elements would combine with one another in fixed
ratios and sometimes also in multiples of those ratios, Dalton formulated
his atomic theory.

The idea of atoms had been proposed much earlier. The ancient Greek
philosophers had talked about atoms, but Dalton's theory was different in
that it had the weight of careful chemical measurements behind it. It wasn't
just a philosophical statement that there are atoms because there must be
atoms. His atomic theory, stated that elements consisted of tiny particles
called atoms. He said that the reason an element is pure is because all
atoms of an element were identical and that in particular they had the
same mass. He also said that the reason elements differed from one another
was that atoms of each element were different from one another; in
particular, they had different masses. He also said that compounds
consisted of atoms of different elements combined together. Compounds
are pure substances (remember they cannot be separated into elements by
phase changes) because the atoms of different elements are bonded to one
another somehow, perhaps by hooks, and are not easily separated from one
another. Compounds have constant composition because they contain a
fixed ratio of atoms and each atom has its own characteristic weight, thus
fixing the weight ratio of one element to the other. In addition he said
that chemical reactions involved the rearrangement of combinations of
those atoms.

So that, briefly, is Dalton's theory. With modifications, it has stood up pretty

well to the criteria that we talked about earlier. It did not convince
everyone right away however. Although a number of chemists were quickly
convinced of the truth of the theory, it took about a half century for the
opposition to die down, or perhaps I should say die off.

Let me point out again the difference between a model of atoms and a theory of
atoms. A model focuses on describing what the atoms are like, whereas the theory not
only talks about what the atoms are like but how they interact with one another and
so forth. Dalton's model was that the atoms were tiny, indivisible, indestructible
particlesand that each one had a certain mass, size, and chemical behavior that
was determined by what kind of element they were. We will use that model of an
atom for now, but we will modify it considerably in a later lesson.

John Dalton

A photo of the great scientist, John Dalton

Where/when was he born and when did he die?

John Dalton was born on September 6, 1766 into
a Quaker family in Eaglesfield in Cumberland,
Englandand died on July 27, 1844.

What country did he live and work in?John Dalton

lived and worked in England as a teacher and public
lecturer.What area of science did he study?John Dalton
was seriously interested in meteorology for the longest time.
He published Meteorological Observations which was daily
weather observations. He did these observations from 1787
until he died in 1844. His serious interest in meteorology led
him to his view of atomism.
A brief history of his life:
Between his life and his death, John Dalton made his living as
a teacher and public lecturer. He began teaching when he
was 12. He taught for 10 years at a Quaker boarding school
in Kendal, and then he moved on to a teaching position at
the city of Manchester. Once he got into atomism, he
calculated atomic weights and came up with his Atomic
Theory.

What contribution did he make too the atomic

model and our understanding of atoms?
His atomic theory said that elements consisted of tiny
particles called atoms. It states an element is one of a kind
(aka pure) because all atoms of an element are identical. All
the atoms that make up the element have the same mass. All
elements are different from each other due to differing
masses. A compound is a pure (one of a kind) substance due
to different
 A photo of John Dalton's atomic model
elements bonded together. They are not easily separated
from one another. Compounds have a fixed ratio of atoms.
Each atom has its own characteristic weight, creating a
weight ratio between elements. Also, his theory said that
chemical reactions involve the rearrangement of
combinations of atoms. His atomic theory stated the general
information on the atom. Everything is made of atoms. All
atoms of different substances have different weights.

FUN FACTS:

When John Dalton died, 40,000 people attended his funeral

procession.

He discovered color blindness, and still today it is sometimes

referred to as "Daltonism".

He was afflicted with color blindness.

Dalton's Atomic Theory

Democritus first suggested the existence of the atom but it took

almost two millennia before the atom was placed on a solid foothold
as a fundamental chemical object by John Dalton (1766-1844).
Although two centuries old, Dalton's atomic theory remains valid in
modern chemical thought.
 Dalton's Atomic
Theory

1) All matter is
made of atoms.
Atoms are
indivisible and
indestructible.

2) All atoms of a
given element are
identical in mass
and properties

3) Compounds are
formed by a
combination of two
or more different
kinds of atoms.

4) A chemical
reaction is
a rearrangementof
atoms.

Modern atomic theory is, of course, a little more involved than

Dalton's theory but the essence of Dalton's theory remains valid.
Today we know that atoms can be destroyed via nuclear reactions
but not by chemical reactions. Also, there are different kinds of
atoms (differing by their masses) within an element that are known
as "isotopes", but isotopes of an element have the same chemical
properties.

Many heretofore unexplained chemical phenomena were quickly

explained by Dalton with his theory. Dalton's theory quickly
became the theoretical foundation in chemistry.

History of Dalton's Atomic Theory

Although the concept of the atom dates back to the ideas of Democritus, the English meteorologist and
chemist John Dalton formulated the first modern description of it as the fundamental building block of
chemical structures. Dalton developed the law of multiple proportions (first presented in 1803) by studying
and expanding upon the works of Antoine Lavoisier and Joseph Proust.
Proust had studied tin oxides and found that their masses were either 88.1% tin and 11.9% oxygen or
78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen (these were tin(II) oxide and tin dioxide respectively). Dalton noted from
these percentages that 100g of tin will combine either with 13.5g or 27g of oxygen; 13.5 and 27 form a
ratio of 1:2. Dalton found an atomic theory of matter could elegantly explain this common pattern
in chemistry - in the case of Proust's tin oxides, one tin atom will combine with either one or two oxygen
atoms.
Dalton also believed atomic theory could explain why water absorbed different gases in different
proportions: for example, he found that water absorbed carbon dioxide far better than it
absorbed nitrogen. Dalton hypothesized this was due to the differences in the mass and complexity of
the gases' respective particles. Indeed, carbon dioxide molecules (CO2) are heavier and larger than
nitrogen molecules (N2).
Dalton proposed that each chemical element is composed of atoms of a single, unique type, and though
they cannot be altered or destroyed by chemical means, they can combine to form more complex
structures (chemical compounds). Since Dalton reached his conclusions by experimentation and
examination of the results in an empirical fashion, this marked the first truly scientific theory of the atom.
 John Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy
This image from Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy, published in 1808,
depicts various atoms and molecules.

Dalton's Atomic Theory

The main points of Dalton's atomic theory are:

1. Everything is composed of atoms, which are the indivisible building blocks of matter
and cannot be destroyed.
2. All atoms of an element are identical.
3. The atoms of different elements vary in size and mass.
4. Compounds are produced through different whole-number combinations of atoms.
5. A chemical reaction results in the rearrangement of atoms in
the reactant and product compounds.
Atomic theory has been revised over the years to incorporate the existence of atomic isotopes and the
interconversion of mass and energy. In addition, the discovery of subatomic particles has shown that
atoms can be divided into smaller parts. However, Dalton's importance in the development of modern
atomic theory has been recognized by the designation of the atomic mass unit as a Dalton.

John Dalton, a British school teacher, published his theory about atoms in 1808. His
findings were based on experiments and the laws of chemical combination.

Postulates
1. All matter consists of indivisible particles called atoms.
2. Atoms of the same element are similar in shape and mass, but differ from the
atoms of other elements.
3. Atoms cannot be created or destroyed.
4. Atoms of different elements may combine with each other in a fixed, simple,
whole number ratios to form compound atoms.
5. Atoms of same element can combine in more than one ratio to form two or more
compounds.
6. The atom is the smallest unit of matter that can take part in a chemical reaction.

Drawbacks of Dalton's atomic theory of

matter
 The indivisibility of an atom was proved wrong: an atom can be further
subdivided into protons, neutrons and electrons. However an atom is the
smallest particle that takes part in chemical reactions.
According to Dalton, the atoms of same element are similar in all respects.
However, atoms of some elements vary in their masses and densities. These
atoms of different masses are called isotopes. For example, chlorine has two
isotopes with mass numbers 35 and 37.
Dalton also claimed that atoms of different elements are different in all respects.
This has been proven wrong in certain cases: argon and calcium atoms each
have an atomic mass of 40 amu. These atoms are known as isobars.
According to Dalton, atoms of different elements combine in simple whole
number ratios to form compounds. This is not observed in complex organic
compounds like sugar (C12H22O11).
The theory fails to explain the existence of allotropes; it does not account for
differences in properties of charcoal, graphite, diamond.

Merits of Dalton's atomic theory

The atomic theory explains the laws of chemical combination (the Law of
Constant Composition and the Law of Multiple Proportions).
Dalton was the first person to recognize a workable distinction between the
fundamental particle of an element (atom) and that of a compound (molecule).

Contributors
Binod Shrestha (University of Lorraine)
John Dalton

The theory of atomism, proposed by Dalton in the early 19th century and derived
from meteorological studies, is the foundation for our modern concept of the atom.
HOME / LEARN / HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHIES

Although a schoolteacher, a meteorologist, and an expert on color blindness, John

Dalton is best known for his pioneering theory of atomism.

He also developed methods to calculate atomic weights and structures and

formulated the law of partial pressures.

Early Life

Dalton (17661844) was born into a modest Quaker family in Cumberland, England,
and for most of his lifebeginning in his village school at the age of 12earned his
living as a teacher and public lecturer. After teaching for 10 years at a Quaker
boarding school in Kendal, he moved on to a teaching position in the burgeoning
city of Manchester. There he joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society, which provided him with a stimulating intellectual environment and
laboratory facilities. The first paper he delivered before the society was on color
blindness, which afflicted him and is sometimes still called Daltonism.

Theories of Atomism and the Law of Partial Pressures

Dalton arrived at his view of atomism by way of meteorology, in which he was

seriously interested for a long period: he kept daily weather records from 1787 until
his death, his first book was Meteorological Observations (1793), and he read a series
of papers on meteorological topics before the Literary and Philosophical Society
between 1799 and 1801.
dalton1-profile.jpg
John Dalton, F.R.S., engraved by William Henry Worthington after an 1814 painting
by William Allen, published June 25, 1823, in Manchester and London. Note the
charts with Daltons atomic symbols lying on the table.

Fisher Collection, CHF Collections.

The papers contained Daltons independent statement of Charless law (see Joseph
Louis Gay-Lussac): all elastic fluids expand the same quantity by heat. He also
clarified what he had pointed out in Meteorological Observationsthat the air is not
a vast chemical solvent as Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his followers had thought,
but a mechanical system, where the pressure exerted by each gas in a mixture is
independent of the pressure exerted by the other gases, and where the total
pressure is the sum of the pressures of each gas. In explaining the law of partial
pressures to skeptical chemists of the dayincluding Humphry DavyDalton
claimed that the forces of repulsion thought to cause pressure acted only between
atoms of the same kind and that the atoms in a mixture were indeed different in
weight and complexity.

How John Dalton's meteorological studies led to the discovery of atoms

Arnold Thackray describes how John Dalton's book on

meteorology led to his discovery of the nature of
atoms.

Experiments on Atomic Weights and Structures

He proceeded to calculate atomic weights from percentage compositions of

compounds, using an arbitrary system to determine the likely atomic structure of
each compound. If there are two elements that can combine, their combinations
will occur in a set sequence. The first compound will have one atom of A and one of
B; the next, one atom of A and two atoms of B; the next, two atoms of A and one of
B; and so on. Hence, water is HO. Dalton also came to believe that the particles in
different gases had different volumes and surrounds of caloric, thus explaining why
a mixture of gasesas in the atmospherewould not simply layer out but was kept
in constant motion. Dalton consolidated his theories in his New System of Chemical
Philosophy (18081827).

dalton2.jpg
Elements and their combinations as described in John Daltons New System of
Chemical Philosophy (18081827).
Neville Collection, CHF Collections.

As a Quaker, Dalton led a modest existence, although he received many honors

later in life. In Manchester more than 40,000 people marched in his funeral
procession.
Models of the atom
It is important to realise that a lot of what we know about the structure of atoms has
been developed over a long period of time. This is often how scientific knowledge
develops, with one person building on the ideas of someone else. We are going to look
at how our modern understanding of the atom has evolved over time.

The origins of atomic theory

The idea of atoms was invented by two Greek philosophers, Democritus and Leucippus
in the fifth century BC. The Greek word oo (atom) means indivisible because
they believed that atoms could not be broken into smaller pieces.

Nowadays, we know that atoms are made up of a positively charged nucleus in the
centre surrounded by negatively charged electrons. However, in the past, before the
structure of the atom was properly understood, scientists came up with lots of
different models or pictures to describe what atoms look like.

Definition 1: Model

A model is a representation of a system in the real world. Models help us to

understand systems and their properties.

For example, an atomic model represents what the structure of an atom could look like,
based on what we know about how atoms behave. It is not necessarily a true picture of
the exact structure of an atom.

Models are often simplified. The small toy cars that you may have played with as a child
are models. They give you a good idea of what a real car looks like, but they are much
smaller and much simpler. A model cannot always be absolutely accurate and it is
important that we realise this, so that we do not build up an incorrect idea about
something.
Dalton's model of the atom
John Dalton proposed that all matter is composed of very small things which he called
atoms. This was not a completely new concept as the ancient Greeks (notably
Democritus) had proposed that all matter is composed of small, indivisible (cannot be
divided) objects. When Dalton proposed his model electrons and the nucleus were
unknown.

Thomson's model of the atom

After the electron was discovered by J.J. Thomson in 1897, people realised that atoms
were made up of even smaller particles than they had previously thought. However, the
atomic nucleus had not been discovered yet and so the plum pudding model was put
forward in 1904. In this model, the atom is made up of negative electrons that float in a
soup of positive charge, much like plums in a pudding or raisins in a fruit cake (Figure
2). In 1906, Thomson was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in this field. However,
even with the Plum Pudding Model, there was still no understanding of how these
electrons in the atom were arranged.
The discovery of radiation was the next step along the path to building an accurate
picture of atomic structure. In the early twentieth century, Marie and Pierre Curie,
discovered that some elements (the radioactive elements) emit particles, which are able
to pass through matter in a similar way to Xrays (read more about this in Grade 11). It
was Ernest Rutherford who, in 1911, used this discovery to revise the model of the
atom.

Interesting Fact:

Two other models proposed for the atom were the cubic model and the Saturnian
model. In the cubic model, the electrons were imagined to lie at the corners of a cube. In
the Saturnian model, the electrons were imagined to orbit a very big, heavy nucleus.

Rutherford's model of the atom

Rutherford carried out some experiments which led to a change in ideas around the
atom. His new model described the atom as a tiny, dense, positively charged core called
a nucleus surrounded by lighter, negatively charged electrons. Another way of thinking
about this model was that the atom was seen to be like a mini solar system where the
electrons orbit the nucleus like planets orbiting around the sun. A simplified picture of
this is shown alongside. This model is sometimes known as the planetary model of the
atom.
Bohr's model of the atom
There were, however, some problems with Rutherford's model: for example it could not
explain the very interesting observation that atoms only emit light at certain wavelengths
or frequencies. Niels Bohr solved this problem by proposing that the electrons could
only orbit the nucleus in certain special orbits at different energy levels around the
nucleus.

James Chadwick
Rutherford predicted (in 1920) that another kind of particle must be present in the
nucleus along with the proton. He predicted this because if there were only positively
charged protons in the nucleus, then it should break into bits because of the repulsive
forces between the like-charged protons! To make sure that the atom stays electrically
neutral, this particle would have to be neutral itself. In 1932 James Chadwick discovered
the neutron and measured its mass.

Other models of the atom

Although the most commonly used model of the atom is the Bohr model, scientists are
still developing new and improved theories on what the atom looks like. One of the most
important contributions to atomic theory (the field of science that looks at atoms) was
the development of quantum theory. Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Born and many others
have had a role in developing quantum theory.

What Dalton Discovered

(1766-1844)

Notice the big old gap between the time when Democritus first shouted, "Atomos! We've
got atomos here!" to the publication of Dalton's more formal theory? Told you Aristotle
threw us back into the atomic dark ages a bit. It's not that nobody was thinking about
atoms at all for nearly 2000 years (check out that expanded timeline), but what Dalton
discovered and what he formally published about atoms earns him the next slot on our
field trip through the history of atomic models.

His Experiment: Observing Chemical Reactions

 Dalton spent a lot of time in his lab observing various chemical
reactions. By looking at how things reacted and recombined to form new substances,
Dalton was able to build on Democritus' idea of atoms as the fundamental building
block's of matter and go further to say that there were many different "flavors" or kinds
of atoms.

His Model: Billiard Balls

Where Dalton and Democritus would have agreed (if they hadn't
been separated by 2000 years) is that atoms were the smallest, most basic unit of
matter. Indivisible into smaller parts. (Of course they were both wrong, but we'll get to
that later). Where Dalton advanced atomic theory was by saying we had many different
atoms out there. His model, often dubbed the "billiard ball" model, basically says you
can't divide the atom into smaller pieces.

Dalton also came up with some very important things to know about atoms and how
they combine. Most of these still hold true!

1. All matter is made up of atoms, and these little guys are indivisible (can't break
them apart) and indestructible (can't break them down). He was half right.

2. All atoms of a given element are "the same" (okay, careful here - remember you
know more than Dalton did. "The same" still works for number of protons, but now that
we know about isotopes it's hard to say all atoms of an element are "the same" if by that
you mean identical.)

3. Compounds form when two or more different types of atoms bond chemically,
and they do this is predictable, fixed ratios.

4. Atoms are not destroyed during chemical reactions, they are just rearranged a bit.
Okay, so today we know atoms are made of smaller parts, and you can break them down
in nuclear (not chemical) reactions, but overall Dalton set up a great base of knowledge
for the next group of atomic scientists to build on.

John Dalton (1766-1844) developed the first useful atomic theory of matter around 1803. In the course of
his studies on meteorology, Dalton concluded that evaporated water exists in air as an independent gas.
He wondered how water and air could occupy the same space at the same time, when obviously solid
bodies can't. If the water and air were composed of discrete particles, Dalton reasoned, evaporation might
be viewed as a mixing of water particles with air particles. He performed a series of experiments on
mixtures of gases to determine what effect properties of the individual gases had on the properties of the
mixture as a whole. While trying to explain the results of those experiments, Dalton developed the
hypothesis that the sizes of the particles making up different gases must be different.

Atomic Theory

Dalton's fascination with gases gradually led him to formally assert that every form of matter
(whether solid, liquid or gas) was also made up of small individual particles. He referred to the
Greek philosopher Democritus of Abdera's more abstract theory of matter, which had centuries
ago fallen out of fashion, and borrowed the term "atomos" or "atoms" to label the particles. In an
article he wrote for the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1803, Dalton created
the first chart of atomic weights.

Seeking to expand on his theory, he readdressed the subject of atomic weight in his book A New
System of Chemical Philosophy, published 1808. In A New System of Chemical Philosophy,
Dalton introduced his belief that atoms of different elements could be universally distinguished
based on their varying atomic weights. In so doing, he became the first scientist to explain the
behavior of atoms in terms of the measurement of weight. He also uncovered the fact that atoms
couldn't be created or destroyed.

Dalton's theory additionally examined the compositions of compounds, explaining that the tiny
particles (atoms) in a compound were compound atoms. Twenty years later, chemist Amedeo
Avogadro would further detail the difference between atoms and compound atoms.

In A New System of Chemical Philosophy, Dalton also wrote about his experiments proving that
atoms consistently combine in simple ratios. What that meant was that the molecules of an
element are always made up of the same proportions, with the exception of water molecules.

In 1810 Dalton published an appendix to A New System of Chemical Philosophy. In it he

elaborated on some of the practical details of his theory: that the atoms within a given element
are all exactly the same size and weight, while the atoms of different elements lookand are
different from one other. Dalton eventually composed a table listing the atomic weights of all
known elements.
His atomic theories were quickly adopted by the scientific community at large with few
objections. "Dalton made atoms scientifically useful," asserted Rajkumari Williamson Jones, a
science historian at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Nobel
Laureate Professor Sir Harry Kroto, noted for co-discovering spherical carbon fullerenes,
identified the revolutionary impact of Dalton's discoveries on the field of chemistry: "The crucial
step was to write down elements in terms of their atoms...I don't know how they could do
chemistry beforehand, it didn't make any sense."