Novoselov described some episodes in the history of graphite and other carbon-based materials. After the presentation Professor Novoselov gave a lecture entitled The history of sp 2 carbon in England.
Today’s recipient was Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov FRS, Langworthy Professor of Physics and joint winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of graphene. He cited recent research, which had shown that public attitudes to chemistry were more positive than anticipated. He described how the Royal Society of Chemistry, whose precursor the Chemical Society had been founded three years before Dalton’s death, had as part of its mission the aim of improving the public perception of chemistry and chemists. Professor David Phillips, former president of the RSC, then spoke. The proceedings were opened by Professor Steve Liddle, who stressed the long association of Manchester University with atomic research. The first part of the event took place in the chemistry department of Manchester University. Among the many guests present was Steve Howe who, soberly dressed in period Quaker costume, impersonated John Dalton. A major celebration took place in Manchester in 2003 on the 200th anniversary of Dalton’s first publication on his theory, but the 250th anniversary of his birth could not be allowed to pass without also being marked.Īppropriately enough, this year’s celebrations were organised by Dr Diana Leitch, current President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and also a member of the RSC Historical Group. Furthermore, while the attempts of the alchemists to make gold by chemical means had always met with failure, their dreams now became a theoretical impossibility.Īnniversaries provide appropriate occasions to remember significant events or personalities in the history of science. Hence Dalton’s atomic ideas immediately suggested a theory of chemical change which we still recognise today. Compounds might be decomposed back into their constituent elements, but the elementary atoms could not be destroyed or created by chemical means. These compound atoms (as Dalton called them) had properties which differed from those of their constituent elementary atoms. Chemical reactions could now be explained by atoms combining to form aggregates.
For quantitative work, many chemists continued to use the experimentally determined equivalent weights.īut this should not blind us to the fact that Dalton’s theory set chemistry along its modern path. He produced the first table of atomic weights, but uncertainty remained about the values for many years, because of the difficulty, at the time insurmountable, of determining what we would now call molecular formulae.