biography
pronunciation:
[dawltn]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1766–1844)
|
| biography:
| Chemist, born in Eaglesfield, Cumbria, NW England, UK. After 1781 he became assistant in a boarding-school kept by a cousin in Kendal, where in 1787 he commenced a meteorological journal, continued all his life, recording 200 000 observations. In 1793 he was appointed teacher of mathematics and science in New College, Manchester. He first described colour blindness (Daltonism) in 1794, exemplified in his own case and that of his brother. His chief physical researches were on mixed gases, the force of steam, the elasticity of vapours, and the expansion of gases by heat, his law of partial pressures being also known as Dalton's law. In chemistry he worked on the absorption of gases, and his atomic theory (c.1810) was able to interpret the laws of chemical combination and the conservation of mass, and gave a new basis for all quantitative chemistry. One of the leading early scientists, he remained a man of quiet demeanour and simple habits, reflecting his Quaker beliefs. He ‘never found time’ to marry. |
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