Research Paper On John Dalton And His Discoveries

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Abstract

John Dalton’s interest in meteorology led him to the breakthrough discovery which he has proposed in his Atomic Theory.
John Dalton was a chemist from the England and a meteorologist and physicist. John Dalton is well known for his contribution towards the atomic theory. On the basis of the atomic theory, he is known to be the father of the modern atomic theory. John Dalton was also involved in forecasting the weather. He was among those scientists who liked to place the instruments at home which enabled to observe the weather from the home. Meteorological instruments were found in his home through which he was able to develop the basis for the study of forecasting the weather. His interest in the weather led him to study the nature of gases. The study of nature of gases in turn led him to study the atomic characteristics and put forward the atomic theory. Consequently, he is now famous through the atomic theory which remains unchanged after so many years.
John Dalton was born in a family who lived in the small region of Eaglesfield in the Cumberland in the country of England. His father, Joseph Dalton was a weaver and was very poor. His father was related to the Quaker family who lived in the England. Subsequently, his family too was a Quaker. Quaker was the part of the Christian movement who were based on the ideology which was been extracted from the New Testament. When Dalton was 15 years, he accompanied his brother to run the Quaker school in Cumbria (Oakes, 2007). Since, he was interested in forecasting the weather, he kept a diary which comprised of the meteorology materials regarding the weather analysis which was up to 20,000 analyses during the time span of 57 years. He decided to learn law or medicine, but he was not permitted to perceive education from the English Universities since, they belonged to the dissenter group whose concepts were against the Church of England.
In the year 1973, he was appointed to the position of a teacher in the Manchester state where he taught mathematics and philosophy. He used to teach at New College, which was a dissenting group who offered the jobs to the individuals who were religious and not conformists. John Dalton was inspired by the Elihu Robinson, who was a Quaker. Robinson’s influence led him to develop his interest in the field of meteorology and mathematics (Weber, 2000). In the same year, he wrote a book composed of the meteorological essays under the name of Meteorological Observation and Essays. In this book, the essays were composed of his own observations. The book got published and became the reason for his discoveries which were made later on. He discovered the color concepts related to the eyes and the very first work in this regard was devised in a paper Extraordinary Facts Relating to the Vision of Colors by the Dalton. Later in 1800, he delivered the presentation on the topic of the Experimental Essays, which comprised the knowledge about the gases and experiments related to gases. Moreover, he illustrated his experiments which were expected to discover the chemical nature of the air and the atmospheric pressure. In the year of 1801, Dalton proposed the law for the gases which included the pressure trait of the gases. The law was termed as the Dalton’s law of partial pressure. This law was formulated from the kinetic theory of the gases and it included the findings that the total pressure of the mixture of gases and the addition of partial pressures of gasses in mixture are equal (Reger & Ball, 2009). This law became the basis of many physical activities such as the scuba diving uses the Dalton’s law of the partial pressures in order to maintain the pressure levels at varying depths in the ocean.
Dalton also illustrated some other characteristics of the gases. He discussed the theory of thermal expansion of the gases in which he had explained the reaction of gases when cooled and heated. Subsequently, he provided the knowledge of compression and expansion of the air. The major discovery of Dalton is the atomic theory which was proposed in 1805. He was the first to discover that the elements were formed by the very minute particles called atoms. Furthermore, the difference in elements is due to the different atoms according to the size and weight. Atoms according to his discovery, cannot be created neither they can be completely destructed. Later the discovery of isotopes provided the proof of this theory since, the structure of the isotopes were alike, but the atoms of the isotope element differ in their sizes (Pauling, 2014).
Dalton’s research on the color blindness is called Daltonism. In his research, he found out that the lack of colors were due to the discoloration in the liquid content of the eyeballs (Hunt et al., 1995). These findings were rejected, but the atomic theory is still approved today. In addition to this he was the first one to prepare the chart containing the atomic weights of the elements. He authored a book namely A New System of Chemical Philosophy, which was composed of the atomic theory and atomic weights.
In conclusion, the discoveries of John Dalton have made him a living entity till today.

Works Cited

Hunt, D. M., Dulai, K. S., Bowmaker, J. K., & Mollon, J. D. (1995). The chemistry of John Dalton's color blindness. Science, 267(5200), 984-988. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7863342 on 30th March 2015.
Oakes, E. H. (2007). Encyclopedia of world scientists. Infobase Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-world-scientists/oclc/466364697 on 30th March 2015.
Pauling, L. (2014). General chemistry. Courier Corporation. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9780486134659 on 30th March 2015.
Reger, D., Goode, S., & Ball, D. (2009). Chemistry: principles and practice. Cengage Lea. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9780534420123 on 30th March 2015.
Weber, A. S. (2000). Nineteenth-century science: a selection of original texts. Broadview Press. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9781551111650 on 30th March 2015.