REPOST: How John Dalton's Atomic Theory Changed Science Forever @MathScienceHistory

Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

I'm revisiting one of my first episodes: the story of John Dalton, the self-taught Quaker schoolteacher who never attended university yet gave modern atomic theory its first real momentum. Barred from English universities for his faith, Dalton turned stubborn curiosity into world-changing science, mapping colorblindness before anyone understood it and sketching the first table of elements in a notebook. This is how one weaver's son carried science from a Cumberland village to the Large Hadron Collider.

You'll learn:

• How a Quaker weaver's son barred from university built the foundation of atomic theory

• The stockings mix-up that led Dalton to discover, and later name, colorblindness

• Why his five-element notebook sketch from 1803 still echoes inside the Large Hadron Collider

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Music & Closing Credits Music: All music is public domain and has no Copyright and no rights reserved.

Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers

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Until next time, carpe diem! - Gabrielle

REPOST: How John Daltons Atomic Theory Changed Science Forever

REPOST: When Women Gather | Math! Science! History!

$Rosalind Franklin: The Half-Life of Recognition | Math! Science! History! What happens when the person who does the most essential work never gets the credit? In this episode of Math, Science, History, I tell the story of Rosalind Franklin, the brilliant, exacting chemist whose X-ray diffraction image, Photo 51, revealed the double helix structure of DNA. From the basement of Kings College London to the Nobel Prize ceremony she never attended, this episode traces how recognition fades, gets redistributed, and sometimes takes seventy years to settle. Its a story about science, yes, but also about who gets to be remembered, and why the quiet ones doing the actual work so often disappear from history before history knows it has a debt to pay. What Youll Learn · How Rosalind Franklin used X-ray crystallography to capture Photo 51, and what she derived from that single image · How Watson and Crick accessed Franklins data without her knowledge, and what it meant for the published record · Why Franklin never shared in the 1962 Nobel Prize, and the ongoing debate about what would have happened had she lived Quote from the Episode Rosalind Franklin knew the shape of DNA from its shadow. We know the shape of this problem from its data. The question this podcast really asks is whether knowing is enough., Gabrielle Birchak Episode Resources Dr. Rosalind Franklin, Rosalind Franklin University (https://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/about/facts-figures/dr-rosalind-franklin/) The Story Behind Photograph 51, Kings College London (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/the-story-behind-photograph-51) From the Archive: Rosalind Franklins Famous Photo 51, UKRI (https://www.ukri.org/blog/from-the-archive-rosalind-franklins-famous-photo-51/) Science Museum of Virginia, Rosalind Franklin (https://smv.org/learn/blog/rosalind-franklin-and-most-important-photo-ever-taken/) 🔗 Explore more on our website: mathsciencehistory.com (https://mathsciencehistory.com) 📚 To buy my book Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life on Amazon, visit https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h (https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h) 🎧 Enjoying the Podcast? ☕ Support the Show: Coffee!! PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/PR7F7ST49GDNA) Leave a review! It helps more people discover the show! Share this episode with friends & fellow history buffs! Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform Check out our merch: https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store (https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store) Music: All music is public domain and has no Copyright and no rights reserved. Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers Until next time, carpe diem! Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/32754556?utm_source=youtube$

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