John Dalton was born September 6, 1766 into a Quaker family at Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth, Cumberland, England.

The son of a weaver, by the age of 15 John had joined his older brother in running a Quaker school in nearby Kendal.

John’s early life became highly influenced by a prominent Eaglesfield Quaker named Elihu Robinson, who was a competent meteorologist and instrument maker, and the man that sparked an interest in John in regard to mathematics and meteorology.

During his years in Kendal, Dalton contributed solutions of problems and questions on various subjects to the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Diaries, and in 1787 he began to keep a meteorological diary in which, during the succeeding 57 years, he entered more than 200,000 observations.

John also rediscovered George Hadley’s theory of atmospheric circulation (now known as the Hadley cell) around this time.

Around 1790, he considered taking up law or medicine, but these…