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Combination of AtomsOne of the important reasons for talking about atoms is because the atoms combine with one another. That was an important part of the reason that Dalton came up with his atomic theory. He wanted to explain why compounds had fixed composition. But, as you will see, atoms combine in more ways than Dalton imagined.
Essentially, that was Dalton's concept. The value of this approach is that it explains composition. The mechanism of how those atoms hook together is not yet explained, but the idea that they do hook together gives some sense to the elements combining in fixed ratios. There are, however, short-comings. One is that water is not composed of one atom each of hydrogen and oxygen. Another short-coming is that it doesn't address the different types of compounds and the different ways in which atoms can bond to one another. I chose these particular examples, water and salt (sodium chloride), because they represent radically different ways of combining elements, of combining atoms. We will deal with those different ways of combining atoms quite a bit later in this course when we talk about bonding, but I did want to point out that short-coming now. Another problem is that Dalton's method ignores the combination of like atoms. It doesn't say anything about two atoms of oxygen combining together, and I think Dalton denied that that was even a possibility. Well, it turns out that it is more than just a possibility. It does in fact happen. In the pages of this section, we will take a closer look at molecules, formulas and the various types of formulas with which you need to be familiar.
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