That chemical elements are made of atoms (the smallest piece of matter that still retained the chemical features of the element) was an idea first put forth by Greek philosophers. Revitalization of the atomic theory was, in part, credited to John Dalton, an English school tutor and practicing chemist, during the early 1800s. The reason that his work on chemical atomism, if not physical atomism, was so widely accepted was that it worked to explain the relationships that had been noted and tested by the chemists of the latter part of the 1700s. In particular, it gave a rationale for the work of an obscure German chemist, Jeremias Richter.

Richter "invented" stoichiometry, which can be described as the systematic study of the quantitative changes between substances undergoing a chemical transformation or reaction. Just as Johannes Kepler had provided a mathematical harmony to the stars, Richter was determined to...