01862 a2200325 4500 1138393894 20250317100351.0 250312042020GB eng 9781138393899 Taylor & Francis GBP 33.99 BB 01 eng PDX thema NH thema 3M bisac PDX bic HB bic 3J bisac HIS000000 bisac HIS037030 bisac HIS037060 bisac SCI034000 bisac 541.24 bisac David M. Knight Atoms and Elements A Study of Theories of Matter in England in the Nineteenth Century 1 Oxford Routledge 20200814 178 p First published in 1967. The impression is sometimes given that the Atomic Theory was revived in the early years of the nineteenth century by John Dalton, and that continuously from then on it has played a vital role in chemistry. The aim of this study is to revise this over-simplified picture. Atomic explanations seemed to chemists to go beyond the facts, to fail to lend themselves to mathematical expression, and to deny the ultimate simplicity and unity of all matter. Most, therefore, rejected them. Meanwhile, physicists were developing a whole range of atomic theories to explain the physical properties of bodies in terms of very simple atoms or particles. During the last thirty years of the century the position changed, as physicists and chemists came to agree on a common atomic theory. But the last prominent opponents of atomism were not converted until the early years of the twentieth century, by which time studies of radioactivity had made it clear that the billiard-ball Daltonian atom must, in any case, be abandoned. 201 201