Talk:History of atomic theory

History of atomic theory has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 15, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
October 21, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
October 23, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
October 27, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
October 28, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
November 3, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
November 26, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
February 12, 2007	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
March 30, 2007	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
August 29, 2007	Good article reassessment	Kept
February 15, 2023	Good article reassessment	Kept
Current status: Good article

History of Science Top‑importance

	History of science portal This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.History of ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject History of ScienceTemplate:WikiProject History of Sciencehistory of science
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Physics: History Top‑importance

	Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by History Taskforce.

Chemistry Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemistry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of chemistry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChemistryWikipedia:WikiProject ChemistryTemplate:WikiProject ChemistryChemistry
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives: Index 1

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Law of multiple proportions

Our section on "Dalton's Law of multiple proportions" here is almost as long as Law of multiple proportions. I think the section goes into too much detail for this article. We're covering almost 200 years of science across at least chemistry and physics in this article so it feels to me we should let the main article carry more of the Dalton details. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:18, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Strong disagree. I myself struggled with this issue as I wrote all this, and ultimately decided that it's no big deal if this section is almost as long as the main article. Kurzon (talk) 21:13, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you elaborate? How can we justify giving three detailed examples for Dalton while giving Pauli a single sentence?

We have an entire article on the Law of multiple proportions. All we need in this article is a summary: what the Law means, a key historical events that lead to it, and it's impact on the next phase. Reader who want more can read the in depth version. I think this level of detail detracts from the article and makes it less useful. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you expand the Pauli stuff yourself? Kurzon (talk) 17:57, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Groundwork

I might be a little new to editing wikipedia, but how was Robert Boyle supposed to have worked in the 15th century, when the man was not even alive at the time? Nickrmst (talk) 22:55, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I fixed it. But I encourage you to boldly fix things like this, using and edit summary to explain the reason. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:03, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

change "Working in the late 15th century, Robert Boyle developed the concept of a chemical element as substance different from a compound." to "Working in the late 17th century, Robert Boyle developed the concept of a chemical element as substance different from a compound." Either the man was not alive at the time of his work, or the hyperlink to the Robert Boyle page is wrong, and the man who developed the concept is not that Robert Boyle. Nickrmst (talk) 23:05, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done thanks Johnjbarton (talk) 23:19, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What are these 'other mistakes' as implied here ?

" [...] Dalton was mistaken about the formulas of these compounds, and it wasn't his only mistake. But in other cases, he got their formulas right, as in the following examples [...] "

Hi, I'm studying in physical science at the moment and became interested in these concepts. What are the other mistakes he made? If it's referring to the assumptions Dalton made in the following (non-example) paragraph, then I feel like this little offhand here is a bit detached. The three examples here are lengthy and separate the mentioning of the mistakes from the mistakes themselves.

Otherwise, if those are not what this bit is referring to, more info might be needed for clarification. 170.85.56.116 (talk) 14:29, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I'm a student with not much research on the subject yet, and I'm just sharing that that part interested and confused me a little. I can see that happening a lot considering this is a subject taught in high school, or at least my high school. 170.85.56.116 (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article goes into a depth beyond what is taught in high school. Kurzon (talk) 15:30, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article does indeed, yes! My point was that since this subject in general is taught in high school and those interested may want to learn more, wording like this may be a bit confusing (In a different way than going more in-depth of course) 170.85.56.116 (talk) 14:39, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well the section does go on to discussing how Avogadro's principle made chemists argue over diatomic molecules. Kurzon (talk) 16:31, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are you still in high school? Do you think this article lacks something? Kurzon (talk) 19:36, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The law of multiple proportions by itself cannot reliably tell you the composition of a substance's molecules. That was a point I wanted to make. Kurzon (talk) 16:07, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the original post. This sentence is very odd and unsourced. The sentence claims

In this particular case, Dalton was mistaken about the formulas of these compounds, and it wasn't his only mistake. But in other cases, he got their formulas right,...

Then it goes in to three long paragraphs of cases he got right (I guess).

The presentation is confusing by starting with mistakes, then saying more to come, but switching to successes and going in depth.

Moreover, as I have pointed out before, we don't need to enumerate examples in an encyclopedia. We just need to know he had some successes and some failures and why. A brief mention of one example of each kind is fine if it illustrates the reason for success and failure. The "Why" is critical, the examples are not. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:53, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]