Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Modern atomic theory is not based on these old concepts. [2] [3] In the early 19th century, the scientist John Dalton noticed that chemical substances seemed to combine with each other by discrete and consistent units of weight, and he decided to use the word atom to refer to these units. [4]
He described atomic theory as a 'Thoroughly materialistic bit of joiners work'. [77] English chemist Alexander Williamson used his Presidential Address to the London Chemical Society in 1869 [78] to defend the atomic theory against its critics and doubters. This in turn led to further meetings at which the positivists again attacked the ...
William Higgins (1763 – June 1825), an Irish chemist, was one of the early proponents of atomic theory.Known mainly for his speculative ideas on chemical combination, William Higgins is popular for the insights his life offers into the emergence of chemistry as a career during the British Industrial Revolution.
An image from John Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy, the first modern explanation of atomic theory.. This timeline of chemistry lists important works, discoveries, ideas, inventions, and experiments that significantly changed humanity's understanding of the modern science known as chemistry, defined as the scientific study of the composition of matter and of its interactions.
The early theory of atomism can be traced back to ancient Greece. Greek atomism was made popular by the Greek philosopher Democritus, who declared that matter is composed of indivisible and indestructible particles called "atomos" around 380 BC. Earlier, Leucippus also declared that atoms were the most indivisible part of matter.
[4]: 186 Moreover, the alpha particle, so important to the next advance in atomic theory by Rutherford, would no longer be viewed as an atom containing thousands of electrons. [21]: 269 In 1907, Thomson published The Corpuscular Theory of Matter [22] which reviewed his ideas on the atom's structure and proposed further avenues of research.
From 1814 to 1819, Irish chemist William Higgins claimed that Dalton had plagiarised his ideas, but Higgins' theory did not address relative atomic mass. [22] [23] 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.
During the early 19th century, chemical research by John Dalton and Amedeo Avogadro lent weight to the atomic theory of matter, an idea that James Clerk Maxwell, Ludwig Boltzmann and others built upon to establish the kinetic theory of gases.