John Dalton By: Period 8 Early Years and Education • John Dalton was born in the small British village of Eaglesfield, Cumberland, England to a Quaker family. • As a child, John did not have much formal education because his family was rather poor; however, he did acquire a basic foundation in reading, writing, and arithmetic at a nearby Quaker school. • A teacher by the name of John Fletcher took young John Dalton under his wing and introduced him to a great mentor, Elihu Robinson, who was a rich Quaker. • Elihu then agreed to tutor John in mathematics, science, and meteorology. Shortly after he ended his tutoring sessions with Elihu, Dalton began keeping a daily log of the weather and other matters of meteorology. Education continued • His studies of these weather conditions led him to develop theories and hypotheses about mixed gases and water vapor. • He kept this journal of weather recordings his entire life, which later aided him in his observations and recordings of atoms and elements. Accomplishments • In 1794, Dalton became the first • Dalton joined the Manchester to explain color blindness, Literary and Philosophical which he was afflicted with Society and instantly published himself, at one of his public his first book on Meteorological lectures and it is even Observations and Essays. sometimes called Daltonism referring to John Dalton • In this book, John tells of his himself. ideas on gasses and that “in a • The first paper he wrote on this mixture of gasses, each gas matter was entitled exists independently of each Extraordinary facts relating to other gas and acts accordingly,” the visions of colors “in which which was when he’s famous he postulated that shortage in ideas on the Atomic Theory color perception was caused by started to form. discoloration of the liquid medium of the eyeball.” The Atomic Theory • John Dalton was the first to put all of the ideas surrounding the structure of the atom into one universal Atomic Theory. • The five main points of Dalton’s original theory were: – elements are made of tiny particles called atoms – all atoms of a given element are identical, the atoms of a given element are different from those of any other element – atoms of one element can combine with atoms of other elements to form compounds; The Atomic Theory Cont’d – a given compound always has the same relative numbers of types of atoms – atoms cannot be created, divided into smaller particles, nor destroyed in the chemical process; a chemical reaction simply changes the way atoms are grouped together. • Though four out of the five statements in Dalton’s Atomic Theory are still excepted today, this was the biggest achievement in the advancement of chemistry made by Dalton. Later Life • During his adulthood, John needed to make a little money so he began holding public lectures on different matters of the science and mathematical fields. – It was even said that Dalton offered to sell his extensive, eleven-volume botanical collection to a local museum. • Luckily, he received a job as a tutor at Manchester College, which was also called the ‘New College,’ where he earned 80 pounds a year. Later Life and Death • Although, John Dalton did so much for scientific discoveries, in England they rarely honor their achieving citizens; however, by the plea of Dalton’s friends, Lord Grey issued him a pension of 150 to 300 pounds in 1833. • John was definitely devoted to his work and he portrayed this by having few friends and never marrying. • He lived with his closest and only friend, Rev. W. Johns in George Street, Manchester for more then 50 years. There he did most of his laboratory work. • Dalton died in his home in Manchester in 1844 after several attacks caused by his paralysis, which he suffered due to a serve fall. • Even though he was about to die from these strokes, on July 26, the day before he died, Dalton recorded his last meteorological observation. What He Overcame • Color blindness made it difficult for Dalton to make his observations of the weather conditions and the elements he studied. • Color Blindness is defined as an inability to distinguish between some or all colors. Therefore, he was forced to make his own tool and instruments to aid him in receiving the most out of his observations for accuracy. • As it turns out, Dalton had a less common kind of color blindness, which was proven by experiments and test done on his preserved eyeball in 1995. • Actually, John’s color blindness is called deauteronanopia, which is where the medium wavelength sensitive cones are absent, rather than doing their normal job of functioning with a altered form of their color pigment • Dalton stated in his paper, “that part of the image which others call red appears to me a little more than a shade or defect of light. After that, the orange, yellow, and green seem one color which descends pretty uniformly an intense to a rare yellow, making what I should call different shades of yellow.” Reflections • I believe that by him being affected by his color blindness, it has aided him in his discoveries because by not being able to see the colors of the gases and atoms, John saw them, as they were, a gas or an atom. By observing that, he was able to form theories about these particles in their purist forms with no colors or other light affects to distort the image. On the other hand, this could have made it extremely difficult for him to observe those substances, whether they were gases or atoms, that had no color what so ever. • Learning about John Dalton has taught me that you don’t need the facts, at first, behind your theories to support it to know that your gut instinct is the right one. It has also taught me to never change your views for people who have more money than you because even though he had little money, he still managed to believe in his work and carrying on doing it until the day he died. I hope that I have the same will power and determination he possessed to overcome his disability and to believe in my theories and myself..