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Explain how Dalton's theory accounts for the law of multiple proportion.?

by Guest56158  |  earlier

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Dalton's third statement - Chemical compounds are formed when atoms of different elements combine with each other. A given compound always has the same relative numbers and types of atoms.

Law of multiple proportion- When 2 elements form a series of compounds, the ratios of the masses of the second element that combine with one gram of the first element can always be reduced to small whole numbers.

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  1. statement that when two elements combine with each other to form more than one compound, the weights of one element that combine with a fixed weight of the other are in a ratio of small whole numbers. For example, there are five distinct oxides of nitrogen, and the weights of oxygen in combination with 14 grams of nitrogen are, in increasing order, 8, 16, 24, 32, and 40 grams, or in a ratio of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The law was announced (1804) by the English chemist John Dalton, and its confirmation for a wide range of compounds served as the most powerful argument in support of Dalton’s theory that matter consists of indivisible atoms.

    The most important of all Dalton's investigations are those concerned with the atomic theory in chemistry, with which his name is inseparably associated. It has been proposed that this theory was suggested to him either by researches on ethylene (olefiant gas) and methane (carburetted hydrogen) or by analysis of nitrous oxide (protoxide of azote) and nitrogen dioxide (deutoxide of azote), both views resting on the authority of Thomas Thomson. However, a study of Dalton's own laboratory notebooks, discovered in the rooms of the Lit & Phil,[2] concluded that so far from Dalton being led by his search for an explanation of the law of multiple proportions to the idea that chemical combination consists in the interaction of atoms of definite and characteristic weight, the idea of atoms arose in his mind as a purely physical concept, forced upon him by study of the physical properties of the atmosphere and other gases. The first published indications of this idea are to be found at the end of his paper on the absorption of gases already mentioned, which was read on October 21, 1803, though not published until 1805. Here he says:

        Why does not water admit its bulk of every kind of gas alike? This question I have duly considered, and though I am not able to satisfy myself completely I am nearly persuaded that the circumstance depends on the weight and number of the ultimate particles of the several gases.

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