preview

Ernest Rutherford Research Paper

Decent Essays

Where would the science world be today if it wasn't for Ernest Rutherford? We would probably still think that the atom was indivisible and unchangeable, or even there is no such thing as a proton. Ernest Rutherford is a famous physicist known for coining some basic terms in the field of physics such as; alpha rays, beta rays, gamma rays, the proton, the neutron, and half-life. He worked among the side of other great physicists like J.J. Thomson, Niels Bohr, Frederick Soddy, James Chadwick and Hans Geiger; together they discovered a whole new realm of science. (PBS, 1998). Ernest Rutherford was born August 30th, 1871, on a farm in New Zealand. He was the fourth child born out of his twelve siblings. Before he started to make mass discoveries in the world of science, he got his degree from the University of New Zealand and began to teach. After teaching for awhile, Rutherford got a scholarship to Cambridge University in England to be the first graduate …show more content…

This began the research of the atom's nuclear structure. Rutherford showed the science world that nuclei of light elements could be destroyed by radioactivity. He also learned that fast protons are emitted from the nucleus when radioactivity interacted with the nuclei. Rutherford didn't stop there, he kept going on discovering new things, and was greatly acknowledged for all his hard work. (NNDB, 2014). In 1908, Rutherford won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He also created the Rutherford-Geiger detector, with the help of Hans Geiger. The detector was used for uncovering single particles that were emitting from radioactive atoms. Rutherford also worked with Henry Gwyn Jefferys Moseley; they used the cathode ray to demonstrate that each element can be determined by an atomic number from the inner structures of the atom. His biggest accomplishments were still yet to

Get Access