Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS[1] (30 August 1871 19 October 1937) was a New

w Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics.[2] In early work he discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, proved that radioactivity involved the transmutation of one chemical element to another, and also differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation, proving that the former was essentially helium ions. This work was done at McGill University in Canada. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".[3] Rutherford performed his most famous work after he had moved to the Victoria University of Manchester in the UK in 1907 and was already a Nobel laureate. In 1911, he theorized that atoms have their positive charge concentrated in a very small nucleus,[4] and thereby pioneered the Rutherford model of the atom, through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering in his gold foil experiment. He is widely credited with first "splitting the atom" in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen and alpha particles, in which he also discovered (and named) the proton.[5] This led to the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner, performed by two students working under his direction, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, in 1932. After his death in 1937, he was honoured by being interred with the greatest scientists of the United Kingdom, near Sir Isaac Newton's tomb in Westminster Abbey. The chemical element rutherfordium (element 104) was named after him in 1997.

Rutherford atomic model, description of the structure of atoms proposed (1911) by the British physicist Ernest Rutherford. The model described the atom as a tiny, dense, positively charged core called a nucleus, in which nearly all the mass is concentrated, around which the light, negative constituents, called electrons, circulate at some distance, much like planets revolving around the Sun. The Rutherford atomic model has been alternatively called the nuclear atom, or the planetary model of the atom. The nucleus was postulated as small and dense to account for the scattering of alpha particles from thin gold foil, as observed in a series of experiments performed under Rutherfords

direction in 191011 (see Figure). The diagram shows a simplified plan of his gold foil experiment. A radioactive source capable of emitting alpha particles (i.e., positively charged particles more than 7,000 times as massive as electrons) was enclosed within a protective lead shield. The radiation was focused into a narrow beam after passing through a slit in a lead screen. A thin section of gold foil was placed in front of the slit, and a screen coated with zinc sulfide to render it fluorescent served as a counter to detect alpha particles. As each

alpha particle struck the fluorescent screen, it would produce a burst of light called a scintillation, which was visible through a viewing microscope attached to the back of the screen. The screen itself was movable, allowing Rutherford and his associates to determine whether or not any alpha particles were being deflected by the gold foil. Most alpha particles were observed to pass straight through the gold foil (see inset), which implied that atoms are composed of large amounts of open space. Some alpha particles were deflected slightly, suggesting interactions with other positively charged particles within the atom. Still other alpha particles were scattered at large angles, while a very few even bounced back toward the source. Only a positively charged and relatively heavy target particle, such as the proposed nucleus, could account for such strong repulsion. The negative electrons that balanced electrically the positive nuclear charge were regarded as traveling in circular orbits about the nucleus. The electrostatic force of attraction between electrons and nucleus was likened to the gravitational force of attraction between the revolving planets and the Sun. Most of this planetary atom was open space and offered no resistance to the passage of the alpha particles. The Rutherford model, based wholly<script src="[Link] p=96;key=social sciences+sports recreation+science technology+tourism;kvqsegs=D;kvsource=science;kvtopicid=514258;kvchannel=SCIENCE;mis c=1328321988343"></script> on classical physics, was superseded in a few years by the Bohr atomic model, which incorporated some early quantum theory.

Famous statements
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"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." 1933[16] "It was almost as if you fired a 15 inch shell into a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you. (describing the Geiger-Marsden experiment) "All science is either physics or stamp collecting" (though he was in 1908 awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry) "We haven't the money, so we've got to think."[17]

Ernest Rutherford's contribution to the atomic structure due to the gold foil experiment?
Answer: Ernest did an experiment where he shot alpha particles into a gold foil that proved the concept of a nuclear atom, that is an atom with a nucleus made of protons and neutrons and have electrons moving around the nucleus in some way. His experiment did not show the position of electrons or energy levels or even how they moved.

PROJECT IN PHYSICS

Jan marco R. Nazareno