What led to John Daltons atomic theory?
Modern chemistry recognizes many compounds and mixtures that result from the bonding of atoms. This basic idea is the heart around which all chemistry is structured. However, it wasn’t until the late 1700’s that these important building blocks of chemistry were discovered. Antoine Lavoisier was the French chemist who was the first to establish an experimentally useful definition of an element. Although he had no concept of atoms, he determined that elements are substances that cannot be decomposed by any chemical reaction into simpler substances. He then realized that compounds contain definite proportions of the elements it contains. Lavoisier’s discoveries led to many other important findings that shaped the chemistry that we study today.
