|
|
|
English physicist who named Alpha 
, Beta , and Gamma Rays . He deflected alpha rays with both electric and magnetic fields in 1903. He also observed that the intensity
of Radioactivity fell off with time, and named the halving time the ``Half-Life .'' In 1906, his
students Geiger and Marsden conducted the classic gold foil Alpha Particle scattering experiment which
showed large deflections for a small fraction of incident particles. This led Rutherford to proposed that the atom was
``nuclear.'' For his discoveries, Rutherford was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in chemistry. He much resented that the
prize was in chemistry rather than physics, and his his acceptance speech made a remark to the effect that he had seen many
transformations in his studies, but never one more rapid than his own from physicist to chemist.
Rutherford suggested that the simplest possible rays must be those obtained by hydrogen and that these must be the
fundamental positively charged particle, which he dubbed the Proton in 1914. In 1917, he passed
Alpha Particles through a gas of nitrogen and occasionally observed scintillation of hydrogen
impacting on his screen. He concluded that the Alpha Particles were knocking
Protons out of the nitrogen atoms, and thus that he had made the first observation of nuclear
reactions.
|
|
|
© 1996-9 Eric W. Weisstein