Ernest Rutherford: And the Explosion of Atoms

J. L. Heilbron, Ernest Rutherford: And the Explosion of Atoms

Oxford University Press | ISBN0195123786 | 2003 | PDF | 0.5 MB | 145 pages

An engaging biography that captures the excitement of the early days of nuclear physics, Ernest Rutherford tells the story of the down-to-earth New Zealander who became one of the foremost pioneers of subatomic physics. Rutherford's achievements were numerous and included: Inventing a detector for electromagnetic wavesDiscovering the existence of alpha and beta rays in uranium radiationCreating (with Frederick Soddy) the "disintegration theory" of radioactivity, which regards radioactive phenomena as atomic -- not molecular -- processesDemonstrating that the inner structures of elements correspond with a group of lines that characterize them, which could then be assigned an atomic number and, more important, the properties of each element could be defined by this numberAnd his greatest contribution of all - he discovered that the atom had a nucleus and that it contained the positively charged proton From his early days as a scholarship student to the end of his life as he continued to work in his lab, Ernest Rutherford reveals the life and times of one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century.

NO MIRRORS, PLEASE!