Abstract
ISOTOPES AND IONISATION. THE idea that all atoms of matter might be built of the same primordial units, that is to say, might differ not in material but only in construction, dates back at least as far as Prout. This philosopher endeavoured more than a century ago to show that atoms of all elements were themselves built of atoms of hydrogen. A little earlier Dalton had postulated, in probably the most important theory in the whole history of chemistry, that atoms of the same element were of equal weight. If both these theories were right, the atomic weights of all elements would be comparable with each other as whole numbers. This the chemists soon found was quite incompatible with experimental evidence. They had to choose between the two theories and chose the one that was untrue. In this they were perfectly right, for it is more important that a scientific theory should be simple than that it should be true.
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ASTON, F. Atoms and X-Rays1. Nature 116, 902–904 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116902a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116902a0