Page "Prout's hypothesis" Paragraph 3

Prout's hypothesis remained influential in chemistry throughout the 1820s.

However, more careful measurements of the atomic weights, such as those compiled by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1828 or Edward Turner in 1832, disproved the hypothesis.

In particular the atomic weight of chlorine, which is 35. 45 times that of hydrogen, could not at the time be explained in terms of Prout's hypothesis.

Some came up with the ad hoc claim that the basic unit was one-half of a hydrogen atom, but further discrepancies surfaced.

This resulted in the hypothesis that one-quarter of a hydrogen atom was the common unit.

Although they turned out to be wrong, these conjectures catalyzed further measurement of atomic weights, a great benefit to chemistry.