The Jock Strap of Atomic Theory

Chances are, you’re not like me: you cringe when someone says the word “chemistry.” Your memory of it vaguely harkens back to an undergrad class whose knowledge you flushed once you finished the final. That’s okay — my goal for this series is to change that paradigm, make it understandable to all, and provide some entertainment.

There are two very important things to remember about John Dalton and the beginning of atomic theory:

1) Dalton had no direct physical evidence of atoms.

Zip. Zilch. Nada. Due to this hard to ignore fact, his theory was relegated to chemistry “meta” in some circles of researchers. He did have an abundance of indirect evidence, though, and his theory fit well with the previously established framework.

2) Dalton’s atomic weight system was relative and arbitrary.

Dalton himself recognized these two pieces of the theory could be troublesome. His weights were based off of the fact that since hydrogen was the lightest gas, it should be the benchmark and that all other weights would be based off setting hydrogen’s atomic weight to one.