In 1911, Ernest Rutherford interpreted the earlier experimental results of his students, Geiger and Marsden, as showing that at the centre of the atom there was a small, dense nucleus with a positive electric charge. This insight was to fundamentally change our understanding of the structure of the physical world and led to the birth of nuclear physics.
Public lecture by Dr David Jenkins, Dept. of Physics, University of York
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Public lecture by Dr David Jenkins, Dept. of Physics, University of York
In 1911, Ernest Rutherford interpreted the earlier experimental results of his students, Geiger and Marsden, as showing that at the centre of the atom there was a small, dense nucleus with a positive electric charge. This insight was to fundamentally change our understanding of the structure of the physical world and led to the birth of nuclear physics.
As we near the centenary of this historic scientific contribution, we will look at how this discovery came about, examine Rutherford's legacy and the important questions that remain in the field of nuclear physics a hundred years on.
Speaker: Dr David Jenkins, Dept. of Physics, University of York