John Dalton

Science Fair Document

Atomic Theory

Dalton's atomic theory was the first complete attempt to describe all matter in terms of atoms and
their properties.

The main points of Dalton's atomic theory, as it eventually developed, are:

1. Elements are made of extremely small particles called atoms.

2. Atoms of a given element are identical in size, mass and other properties; atoms of different
elements differ in size, mass and other properties.

3. Atoms cannot be subdivided, created or destroyed.

4. Atoms of different elements combine in simple whole-number ratios to form chemical

compounds.

5. In chemical reactions, atoms are combined, separated or rearranged.

BACKGROUND

The most important of all Dalton's investigations are concerned with the atomic theory in
chemistry. While his name is inseparably associated with this theory, the origin of Dalton's atomic
theory is not fully understood. The theory may have been suggested to him either by researches
on ethylene (olefiant gas) and methane (carbureted hydrogen) or by analysis of nitrous oxide
(protoxide of azote) and nitrogen dioxide (deutoxide of azote), both views resting on the authority
of Thomas Thomson.

From 1814 to 1819, Irish chemist William Higgins claimed that Dalton had plagiarized his ideas, but
Higgins' theory did not address relative atomic mass. However, recent evidence suggests that
Dalton's development of thought may have been influenced by the ideas of another Irish chemist
Bryan Higgins, who was William's uncle. Bryan believed that an atom was a heavy central particle
surrounded by an atmosphere of caloric, the supposed substance of heat at the time. The size of
the atom was determined by the diameter of the caloric atmosphere. Based on the evidence,
Dalton was aware of Bryan's theory and adopted very similar ideas and language, but he never
acknowledged Bryan's anticipation of his caloric model. However, the essential novelty of Dalton's
atomic theory is that he provided a method of calculating relative atomic weights for the chemical
elements, something that neither Bryan nor William Higgins did.
A study of Dalton's laboratory notebooks, discovered in the rooms of the Manchester Literary and
Philosophical Society, concluded that so far from Dalton being led by his search for an explanation
of the law of multiple proportions to the idea that chemical combination consists in the interaction
of atoms of definite and characteristic weight, the idea of atoms arose in his mind as a purely
physical concept, forced on him by study of the physical properties of the atmosphere and other
gases.

The first published indications of this idea are to be found at the end of his paper "On the
Absorption of Gases by Water and other Liquids" already mentioned. There he says:

Why does not water admit its bulk of every kind of gas alike? This question I have duly considered,
and though I am not able to satisfy myself completely I am nearly persuaded that the circumstance
depends on the weight and number of the ultimate particles of the several gases.

ADVANTAGES OF THE DISCOVERY

In his first extended published discussion of the atomic theory (1808), Dalton proposed an
additional (and controversial) "rule of greatest simplicity". This rule could not be independently
confirmed, but some such assumption was necessary in order to propose formulas for a few
simple molecules, upon which the calculation of atomic weights depended. This rule dictated that
if the atoms of two different elements were known to form only a single compound, like hydrogen
and oxygen forming water or hydrogen and nitrogen forming ammonia, the molecules of that
compound shall be assumed to consist of one atom of each element. For elements that combined
in multiple ratios, such as the then-known two oxides of carbon or the three oxides of nitrogen,
their combinations were assumed to be the simplest ones possible. For example, if two such
combinations are known, one must consist of an atom of each element, and the other must
consist of one atom of one element and two atoms of the other.

This was merely an assumption, derived from faith in the simplicity of nature. No evidence was
then available to scientists to deduce how many atoms of each element combine to form
molecules. But this or some other such rule was absolutely necessary to any incipient theory, since
one needed an assumed molecular formula in order to calculate relative atomic weights. Dalton's
"rule of greatest simplicity" caused him to assume that the formula for water was OH and
ammonia was NH, quite different from our modern understanding (H2O, NH3). On the other hand,
his simplicity rule led him to propose the correct modern formulas for the two oxides of carbon
(CO and CO2). Despite the uncertainty at the heart of Dalton's atomic theory, the principles of the
theory survived.