John Dalton (Dalton John)

(1766-1844)
Born September 6, 1766 in the village in Iglsfild Kambeolende. Educated yourself if you do not take lessons on mathematics, which he took from a blind teacher Dzh.Gaufa. In 1781-1793 he taught mathematics at a school in Kendal, in 1793 - physics and mathematics at New College in Manchester.
The scientific work of Dalton has started since 1787 with observations of air. Over the next 57 years he led the meteorological diary in which he recorded more than 200 000 observations. During the annual visits to the Lake edge struck the top of Skiddo and Helvellin to measure the atmospheric pressure and air sampling. In 1793 published his first work - Meteorological observations and studies (Meteorological Observations and Essays), which contains the rudiments of his future discoveries. In an effort to understand, . why gases in the atmosphere is a mixture with certain physical properties, . not placed one under the other layers, respectively, its density, . he established, . that the behavior of the gas does not depend on the composition of the mixture, formulated the law of partial pressures of gases, . found a dependence of the solubility of gases from their partial pressure,
. In 1802, Dalton independently by Gay-Lussac, discovered one of the gas laws: the constant pressure with increasing temperature all gases expand equally (adiabatic expansion). Public laws Dalton tried to explain to them being developed using the same atomistic representations. He introduced the concept of atomic mass and, assuming a unit mass of a hydrogen atom, in 1803 was the first table of relative atomic masses of elements. Based on the law of constancy of the compounds, . found, . that different compounds of two elements in one and the same quantity of one part of the fall of the other, . Related to each other as simple integers (the law of multiple proportions),
. Dalton considered chemical reactions as related to each other processes of connection and separation of atoms. Only thus could explain why the conversion of one compound to another is accompanied by an abrupt change in composition. Therefore, each atom of any element should be, except some weight, have specific properties and to be indivisible. However, Dalton did not distinguish between atoms and molecules, calling the recent complex atoms. In 1804 he proposed a system of chemical symbols for 'simple' and 'complex' atoms. In the name of Dalton called defect of vision - blindness, which he suffered himself, and who described in 1794.

In 1816, Dalton was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, chairman of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and in 1822 - a member of the Royal Society of London. In 1832, Oxford University awarded him the degree of Doctor of Law.

Dalton died in Manchester, July 27, 1844.