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The atomic nucleus is the small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom, discovered in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford based on the 1909 Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment.
23 paź 2024 · Ernest Rutherford, British physicist who discovered that the atom is mostly empty space surrounding a massive nucleus and who did many pioneering experiments with radioactivity. He was also known for predicting the existence of the neutron and calculating Avogadro’s number.
Rutherford's nuclear model of the atom grew out of a series of experiments with alpha particles, a form of radiation Rutherford discovered in 1899. These experiments demonstrated that alpha particles "scattered" or bounced off atoms in ways unlike Thomson's model predicted.
23 paź 2024 · Rutherford model, description of the structure of atoms proposed (1911) by the New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford. The model described the atom as a tiny, dense, positively charged core called a nucleus, around which the light, negative constituents, called electrons, circulate at some distance.
The Rutherford scattering experiments were a landmark series of experiments by which scientists learned that every atom has a nucleus where all of its positive charge and most of its mass is concentrated. They deduced this after measuring how an alpha particle beam is scattered when it strikes a thin metal foil.
Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of the atom in 1911. We read this in textbooks and in popular writings. But what does that statement mean? Geographical discovery usually means that one sees a place for the first time. But can discovery be the same for a realm hidden from sight? One cannot see an atom in that sense.
Though Rutherford still didn’t know what was in this nucleus he had discovered (protons and neutrons would be identified later), his insight in 1911, which overturned the prevailing plum pudding model of the atom, had opened the way for modern nuclear physics.
