I suppose you could say that the important truth of atomic chemistry has not been substantively refuted: that there really are objects such as carbon “atoms,” nitrogen “atoms,” etc. the individual and relational qualities of which determine the natures of the substances they constitute.
In other words, there is no real alternate hypothesis to the above explanation of substances’ tendency to combine in small whole-number ratios, only refinements of that hypothesis, or things thought to be physically prior.
I put a lot of weight on Lavoisier’s definition of these atoms. As I recall, he wrote something to the effect that whether or not these particles he was talking about are true atoms (in the original greek sense), they were indivisible to Lavoisier. Subsequently, the term “atom” has simply meant those kinds of bodies. If you assume that “atom” must always and only mean particles which are absolutely indivisible, then of course you will disagree, but I do not think the term was used exclusively that way, even among the 18th century chemists who worked out the theory’s basics.
But that fails to take into account the many ways we have learned of since then where matter does not “have a tendency to combine in small whole-number ratios”. Neutron stars are massive quantities of substance, form naturally, and are composed of things with approximately the mass of a hydrogen atom, but almost none of its other properties. An alpha particle (He-4 nucleus) is similarly reminiscent of a helium atom, but exhibits significantly different properties; a beta particle (free electron) bears no resemblance in mass or behavior to any atom. Despite this, both are naturally occurring “substances” (here “substance” is defined as “quantity of matter”).
Heck, even atoms do not exhibit the same properties; a large collection of atoms which have higher-energy electron orbits than their base state will emit photons while they tend back toward that base state, but a large collection of naturally-occurring Hydrogen will include some Deuterium (which is stable and has most of the properties of hydrogen except its mass) and some Tritium which still chemically resembles Hydrogen (despite being about three times its mass) until at some point it spontaneously transmutes into Helium-3 and gains an entirely new set of chemical properties. Modern chemists consider the typical behavior of atoms a useful approximation in many contexts, but that doesn’t make it “pretty damn certain”.
I suppose you could say that the important truth of atomic chemistry has not been substantively refuted: that there really are objects such as carbon “atoms,” nitrogen “atoms,” etc. the individual and relational qualities of which determine the natures of the substances they constitute.
In other words, there is no real alternate hypothesis to the above explanation of substances’ tendency to combine in small whole-number ratios, only refinements of that hypothesis, or things thought to be physically prior.
I put a lot of weight on Lavoisier’s definition of these atoms. As I recall, he wrote something to the effect that whether or not these particles he was talking about are true atoms (in the original greek sense), they were indivisible to Lavoisier. Subsequently, the term “atom” has simply meant those kinds of bodies. If you assume that “atom” must always and only mean particles which are absolutely indivisible, then of course you will disagree, but I do not think the term was used exclusively that way, even among the 18th century chemists who worked out the theory’s basics.
But that fails to take into account the many ways we have learned of since then where matter does not “have a tendency to combine in small whole-number ratios”. Neutron stars are massive quantities of substance, form naturally, and are composed of things with approximately the mass of a hydrogen atom, but almost none of its other properties. An alpha particle (He-4 nucleus) is similarly reminiscent of a helium atom, but exhibits significantly different properties; a beta particle (free electron) bears no resemblance in mass or behavior to any atom. Despite this, both are naturally occurring “substances” (here “substance” is defined as “quantity of matter”).
Heck, even atoms do not exhibit the same properties; a large collection of atoms which have higher-energy electron orbits than their base state will emit photons while they tend back toward that base state, but a large collection of naturally-occurring Hydrogen will include some Deuterium (which is stable and has most of the properties of hydrogen except its mass) and some Tritium which still chemically resembles Hydrogen (despite being about three times its mass) until at some point it spontaneously transmutes into Helium-3 and gains an entirely new set of chemical properties. Modern chemists consider the typical behavior of atoms a useful approximation in many contexts, but that doesn’t make it “pretty damn certain”.