Bevatron: The Antiproton

This information has not always been know to man though. Thankfully scientist such as J.J Thompson, Ernest Rutherford, and James Chadwick were able to perform experiments to shed more light on what the atom was made of. The electron was first found in 1897 by J.J Thompson; shortly after in 1911 the nucleus was discovered by Rutherford, leading to him later discovering the proton in 1919. Before James Chadwick discovered the neutron many scientists believed that there were additional protons in the nucleus, along with the equal number of electrons to cancel out the additional charge. Then in 1920 Rutherford thought that the protons plus the electrons made up a new particle but it was never confirmed. After a few years of study John Chadwick was able to discover the neutron through unidentified radiation experiments, one experiment in particular caught his eye Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie had studied unidentified radiation from beryllium as it hit a paraffin wax target. This experiment encouraged Chadwick to do some of his own experiments in 1932 which made him believe that the radiation ejected from beryllium was in fact a neutral particle about the mass of a proton. He also tried many other targets besides the paraffin wax, these included helium, nitrogen, and lithium. These experiments led Chadwick to find the the mass of the new particle was more than the proton, he also found out that the neutrons have no

Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) succeeded in splitting the uranium atom and the Nobel Committee later awarded him the 1938 prize for physics. At Columbia

Early 1939, the scientist of the world learned that German scientist had discovered a way to spit a uranium atom, created

The pioneering work of Becquerel in 1896 (the discovery of uranium), and the Curies (who subsequently discovered radium and polonium and the energy and heat given off by these new elements which they called radioactivity) led to the remarkable work of Ernest Rutherford. He was a physicist, whose experiments showed that some heavier elements spontaneously changed or decayed into lighter elements (unstable 'parent' elements giving off protons and neutrons to form a 'daughter' element) through the process of radioactivity. He discovered that radioactive materials decay at a very predictable rate, and that lead was the final decay product of uranium. Using Rutherford's ideas, Bertram Boltwood pioneered a method of radiometric dating in 1907. He hypothesized that since he knew how long it takes uranium to break down, he could measure the proportions of lead in uranium ores, and use his calculations to date how long those ores had existed,

Pierre Janssen discovered helium in the spectrum of the corona of the sun during an eclipse in 1868. Shortly after it was identified as an element and named by the chemist Sir Edward Frankland and the British astronomer Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer. The gas was first isolated from terrestrial sources in 1895 by the British chemist Sir William Ramsay, who discovered it in cleveite. In 1907 Sir Ernest Rutherford showed that alpha particles are the nuclei of helium atoms.

Uranium was discovered in 1789, by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German chemist. He first believed the substance he got from pitchblende was pure uranium, but it was actually

produced by all nuclear reactors, so one was able to calculate the amount of krypton being

The first origins of the Manhattan Project began as early as 1930, with physicists such as Albert Einstein, who knew of the power of the single atom. Though it wasn’t until later in the decade that German physicists were able to take those thoughts produce the first artificial nuclear reaction, and even document the theory. Due to the publication of the theory, many people began to realize the immense power that could come from such a tremendous reaction of atoms.

On August 2, 1939, Einstein proposed an interesting to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This idea, called the atomic bomb, would change the lives of everyone. Making it was easier said than done, though. They needed a team of scientists: Robert Oppenheimer, David Bohm, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Felix Bloch, Otto Prisch, Rudolf Peierls, Niels Bohr, Emilio Segre, James Franck, Enrico Fermi, Klaus Fuchs, and Edward Teller. Then they had to find U-235, which looked exactly like U-238, a useless material. The process was hard, especially since only mechanical methods worked. Finally, after an extraction system, a magnetic separation, and a gas centrifuge, all that was needed to be done was to test the entire concept in the deserts of Jornada del Muerto (about money).

It was first developed in the 1940s, and during the Second World War to 1945 research initially focussed on producing bombs which released great energy from the atoms of particular isotopes of either uranium or plutonium.

Otto Hahn was a renowned German radiochemist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of nuclear fission after a lifetime of working with radioactive isotopes. Nuclear fission is widely regarded as the number one key invention that activated the atomic bomb. Hahn is considered to be one of the most famous chemists of all time and the "father of nuclear chemistry." He also was admired by many modern scientist with many achievements, working methods and his integrity in chemistry and physics. During Hahn’s lifetime he was recognized by many scientists as one of the primary discoverers in chemistry and physics.

There are numerous different isotopes of radon so it is difficult to verify who discovered it first, but radon-220 and -222 are the most common forms of this element. Radon-222 was first discovered by a German chemist named Friedrich Ernst Dorn while he was studying radium’s decay chain in 1900. However Robert Owens and Ernest Rutherford observed another isotope of radon first, radon-220, in 1899. More specifically, Rutherford discovered radon's alpha radiation and Dorn discovered that radium was releasing a gas.

The Discovery of the Atom first came from the Greeks which made a theory “The idea that all matter is made up of tiny, indivisible particles, or atoms, is believed to have originated with the Greek philosopher Leucippus of Miletus and his student Democritus of Abdera in the 5th century B.C. (The word atom comes from the Greek word atomos, which means “indivisible.”)” (InfoPlease Atomic theory)

This is what led Curie to take Becquerel’s work a few steps further and conduct her own experiments on uranium rays. She discovered that the rays were constant no matter what form or condition of the uranium. She theorized the rays came from the atomic structure. This idea was revolutionary and created its own field in science, known as the atomic physics, this is when Marie coined the word “radioactivity” to describe the phenomena. Even when they had their first daughter Irene in 1897 there work did not slow. Pierre then stopped his own studies to help Marie with her new discovery of radioactivity. In 1898 they discovered a new radioactive element. They named it polonium after Marie’s native country, Poland. They detected the presence of another radioactive element and called this radium. In 1902 they had extracted pure radium to prove its existence as a unique chemical element.

Nuclear knowledge has existed for a long time. Nuclear Engineering U.S. Department of Energy relates, ―By 1900, the physicists knew the atom contains large quantities of energy‖ (par 11). Many others formed good theories, such as Ernest Rutherford and Einstein’s contribution with his equation E=mc^2. In 1934