paragraph_text: Marie Skłodowska - Curie was a Polish - born French physicist and chemist who is famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She and her husband are considered to have laid the cornerstone of the nuclear age with their research on radioactivity. Marie was fascinated with the work of Henri Becquerel, a French physicist who discovered in 1896 that uranium casts off rays similar to the X-rays discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen. Marie Curie began studying uranium in late 1897 and theorized, according to a 1904 article she wrote for Century magazine, ``that the emission of rays by the compounds of uranium is a property of the metal itself -- that it is an atomic property of the element uranium independent of its chemical or physical state. ''Curie took Becquerel's work a few steps further, conducting her own experiments on uranium rays. She discovered that the rays remained constant, no matter the condition or form of the uranium. The rays, she theorized, came from the element's atomic structure. This revolutionary idea created the field of atomic physics and the Curies coined the word radioactivity to describe the phenomena.

paragraph_text: Selenium is a chemical element with the symbol Se and atomic number 34. It is a nonmetal (more rarely considered a metalloid) with properties that are intermediate between the elements above and below in the periodic table, sulfur and tellurium, and also has similarities to arsenic. It rarely occurs in its elemental state or as pure ore compounds in the Earth's crust. Selenium (from Ancient Greek (selḗnē) "Moon") was discovered in 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who noted the similarity of the new element to the previously discovered tellurium (named for the Earth).

paragraph_text: Relative atomic mass is determined by the average atomic mass, or the weighted mean of the atomic masses of all the atoms of a particular chemical element found in a particular sample, which is then compared to the atomic mass of carbon - 12. This comparison is the quotient of the two weights, which makes the value dimensionless (no unit appended). This quotient also explains the word relative: the sample mass value is made relative to carbon - 12.

paragraph_text: The Quine-Duhem thesis argues that it's impossible to test a single hypothesis on its own, since each one comes as part of an environment of theories. Thus we can only say that the whole package of relevant theories has been collectively falsified, but cannot conclusively say which element of the package must be replaced. An example of this is given by the discovery of the planet Neptune: when the motion of Uranus was found not to match the predictions of Newton's laws, the theory "There are seven planets in the solar system" was rejected, and not Newton's laws themselves. Popper discussed this critique of naïve falsificationism in Chapters 3 and 4 of The Logic of Scientific Discovery. For Popper, theories are accepted or rejected via a sort of selection process. Theories that say more about the way things appear are to be preferred over those that do not; the more generally applicable a theory is, the greater its value. Thus Newton's laws, with their wide general application, are to be preferred over the much more specific "the solar system has seven planets".[dubious – discuss]

paragraph_text: Earlier theories (e.g. by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du Toit) of continental drift postulated that continents ``ploughed ''through the sea. The idea that the seafloor itself moves (and also carries the continents with it) as it expands from a central axis was proposed by Harry Hess from Princeton University in the 1960s. The theory is well accepted now, and the phenomenon is known to be caused by convection currents in the asthenosphere, which is ductile, or plastic, and the brittle lithosphere.

paragraph_text: Aluminium or aluminum is a chemical element with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery - white, soft, nonmagnetic and ductile metal in the boron group. By mass, aluminium makes up about 8% of the Earth's crust; it is the third most abundant element after oxygen and silicon and the most abundant metal in the crust, though it is less common in the mantle below. The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite. Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals.

paragraph_text: Earlier theories (e.g. by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du Toit) of continental drift postulated that continents ``ploughed ''through the sea. The idea that the seafloor itself moves (and also carries the continents with it) as it expands from a central axis was proposed by Harry Hess from Princeton University in the 1960s. The theory is well accepted now, and the phenomenon is known to be caused by convection currents in the asthenosphere, which is ductile, or plastic, and the brittle lithosphere (crust and upper mantle).

paragraph_text: The idea that matter is made up of discrete units is a very old idea, appearing in many ancient cultures such as Greece and India. The word ``atom ''was coined by ancient Greek philosophers. However, these ideas were founded in philosophical and theological reasoning rather than evidence and experimentation. As a result, their views on what atoms look like and how they behave were incorrect. They also could not convince everybody, so atomism was but one of a number of competing theories on the nature of matter. It was not until the 19th century that the idea was embraced and refined by scientists, when the blossoming science of chemistry produced discoveries that only the concept of atoms could explain.

paragraph_text: The General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century () is an influential manifesto written in 1851 by the anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The book portrays a vision of an ideal society where frontiers are taken down, nation states abolished, and where there is no central authority or law of government, except for power residing in communes, and local associations, governed by contractual law. The ideas of the book later became the basis of libertarian and anarchist theory, and the work is now considered a classic of anarchist philosophy.

paragraph_text: All the elements from atomic numbers 1 (hydrogen) through 118 (oganesson) have been either discovered or synthesized, completing the first seven rows of the periodic table. The first 98 elements exist in nature, although some are found only in trace amounts and others were synthesized in laboratories before being found in nature. Atomic numbers for elements 99 to 118 have only been synthesized in laboratories or nuclear reactors. The synthesis of elements having higher atomic numbers is currently being pursued: these elements would begin an eighth row, and theoretical work has been done to suggest possible candidates for this extension. Numerous synthetic radionuclides of naturally occurring elements have also been produced in laboratories.

paragraph_text: Dalton proposed that each chemical element is composed of atoms of a single, unique type, and though they can not be altered or destroyed by chemical means, they can combine to form more complex structures (chemical compounds). This marked the first truly scientific theory of the atom, since Dalton reached his conclusions by experimentation and examination of the results in an empirical fashion.

paragraph_text: Hafnium is a chemical element with the symbol Hf and atomic number 72. A lustrous, silvery gray, tetravalent transition metal, hafnium chemically resembles zirconium and is found in many zirconium minerals. Its existence was predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, though it was not identified until 1923, by Coster and Hevesy, making it the last stable element to be discovered. Hafnium is named after "Hafnia", the Latin name for Copenhagen, where it was discovered.

paragraph_text: In the early 1800s, John Dalton used the concept of atoms to explain why elements always react in ratios of small whole numbers (the law of multiple proportions). For instance, there are two types of tin oxide: one is 88.1% tin and 11.9% oxygen and the other is 78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen (tin (II) oxide and tin dioxide respectively). This means that 100g of tin will combine either with 13.5 g or 27g of oxygen. 13.5 and 27 form a ratio of 1: 2, a ratio of small whole numbers. This common pattern in chemistry suggested to Dalton that elements react in whole number multiples of discrete units -- in other words, atoms. In the case of tin oxides, one tin atom will combine with either one or two oxygen atoms.

paragraph_text: The best - known source of alpha particles is alpha decay of heavier (> 106 u atomic weight) atoms. When an atom emits an alpha particle in alpha decay, the atom's mass number decreases by four due to the loss of the four nucleons in the alpha particle. The atomic number of the atom goes down by exactly two, as a result of the loss of two protons -- the atom becomes a new element. Examples of this sort of nuclear transmutation are when uranium becomes thorium, or radium becomes radon gas, due to alpha decay.

paragraph_text: A chemical element is a species of atoms having the same number of protons in their atomic nuclei (that is, the same atomic number, or Z). 118 elements are identified, of which the first 98 occur naturally on Earth with the remaining 20 being synthetic elements. There are 80 elements that have at least one stable isotope and 38 that have exclusively radionuclides, which decay over time into other elements. Iron is the most abundant element (by mass) making up Earth, while oxygen is the most common element in the Earth's crust.

paragraph_text: The number of protons in the nucleus defines to what chemical element the atom belongs: for example, all copper atoms contain 29 protons. The number of neutrons defines the isotope of the element. The number of electrons influences the magnetic properties of an atom. Atoms can attach to one or more other atoms by chemical bonds to form chemical compounds such as molecules. The ability of atoms to associate and dissociate is responsible for most of the physical changes observed in nature and is the subject of the discipline of chemistry.

paragraph_text: Uranium is a naturally occurring element that can be found in low levels within all rock, soil, and water. Uranium is the 51st element in order of abundance in the Earth's crust. Uranium is also the highest-numbered element to be found naturally in significant quantities on Earth and is almost always found combined with other elements. Along with all elements having atomic weights higher than that of iron, it is only naturally formed in supernovae. The decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium-40 in the Earth's mantle is thought to be the main source of heat that keeps the outer core liquid and drives mantle convection, which in turn drives plate tectonics.

paragraph_text: In chemistry and physics, Dalton's law (also called Dalton's law of partial pressures) states that in a mixture of non-reacting gases, the total pressure exerted is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of the individual gases. This empirical law was observed by John Dalton in 1801 and published in 1802. and is related to the ideal gas laws.

paragraph_text: Hydrogen is a chemical element with chemical symbol H and atomic number 1. With an atomic weight of 7000100794000000000♠1.00794 u, hydrogen is the lightest element on the periodic table. Its monatomic form (H) is the most abundant chemical substance in the Universe, constituting roughly 75% of all baryonic mass.[note 1] Non-remnant stars are mainly composed of hydrogen in its plasma state. The most common isotope of hydrogen, termed protium (name rarely used, symbol 1H), has one proton and no neutrons.

paragraph_text: Around 420 BC, Empedocles stated that all matter is made up of four elemental substances: earth, fire, air and water. The early theory of atomism can be traced back to ancient Greece and ancient India. Greek atomism dates back to the Greek philosopher Democritus, who declared that matter is composed of indivisible and indestructible particles called "atomos" around 380 BC. Leucippus also declared that atoms were the most indivisible part of matter. This coincided with a similar declaration by Indian philosopher Kanada in his Vaisheshika sutras around the same time period. In much the same fashion he discussed the existence of gases. What Kanada declared by sutra, Democritus declared by philosophical musing. Both suffered from a lack of empirical data. Without scientific proof, the existence of atoms was easy to deny. Aristotle opposed the existence of atoms in 330 BC. Earlier, in 380 BC, a Greek text attributed to Polybus argued that the human body is composed of four humours. Around 300 BC, Epicurus postulated a universe of indestructible atoms in which man himself is responsible for achieving a balanced life.

Question: Who is the law, proposed by the man who combined the idea of elements with earlier theories of the atom, named after?
Answer: John Dalton