When green is red
The 26-year-old young man, John Dalton, was comforted by his older brother, Jonathan, while they took a walk through the English city of Kendal.
-John, don’t take it so seriously. I’m sure that mom didn’t want to offend you.
John didn’t seem very convinced and looked in disbelief at the garment that he had given to his mother, and that she returned it made him visibly upset.
-I don’t understand why she doesn’t like it, the clerk assured me that the cloth was of the highest quality.
-You know that mom is very religious and the color red… -answered his brother Jonathan.
-You didn’t realize it either -John objected and, while he threw the scarlet garment in the river, he began to think: Why couldn’t his brother and him distinguish the colors?
Two years later, in 1793, John Dalton published a work where he described a type of disorder the he himself suffered, known from then on as daltonism.
Dalton became famous, and is still known for his atomic theory, that plays a fundamental role in numeric proportionality.
For example, a water molecule has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. His theory affirms that, regardless of the amount of water, the quantity of hydrogen and oxygen atoms always has the same proportion (ratio).
Who's John Dalton?
Ratios and proportions
