John Dalton Atomic Theory Quotes & Sayings

Berzelius' symbols are horrifying. A young student in chemistry might as soon learn Hebrew as make himself acquainted with them ... They appear to me equally to perplex the adepts in science, to discourage the learner, as well as to cloud the beauty and simplicity of the atomic theory. — John Dalton

[John] Dalton was a man of regular habits. For fifty-seven years he walked out of Manchester every day; he measured the rainfall, the temperature - a singularly monotonous enterprise in this climate. Of all that mass of data, nothing whatever came. But of the one searching, almost childlike question about the weights that enter the construction of these simple molecules - out of that came modern atomic theory. That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to the pertinent answer. — Jacob Bronowski

Atoms are round balls of wood invented by Dr. Dalton.
(Answer given by a pupil to a question on atomic theory, as reported by Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe.) — Henry Enfield Roscoe

In the vestibule of the Manchester Town Hall are placed two life-sized marble statues facing each other. One of these is that of John Dalton ... the other that of James Prescott Joule ... Thus the honour is done to Manchester's two greatest sons - to Dalton, the founder of modern Chemistry and of the atomic theory, and the laws of chemical-combining proportions; to Joule, the founder of modern physics and the discoverer of the Law of Conservation of Energy.
One gave to the world the final proof ... that in every kind of chemical change no loss of matter occurs; the other proved that in all the varied modes of physical change, no loss of energy takes place. — Henry Enfield Roscoe