1. Ernest Rutherford

2. Personal Life Born on August 30th in Nelson, New Zealand on 1871
Was the 4th of 12 children
Got a proper start in life
His father was a wheelwright and flaxmiller (builds wheels on carriages)
Married Mary Newton, daughter of Arther and Mary de Renzy Newton
Had a daughter named Eileen
Lived by “heart, head, hand”
Died on October 1937

3. Continued… 1894 won a scholarship to Cambridge University
1898 was the profesor of Physics at McGrill University
1907 was the profesor of Physics at Manchester Univ.
1908 won Nobel Prize in chemistry ( For his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive stubstances)
1914 was knighted but World War I interrupted his work

4. History of Chemistry Timeline of Chemistry
430 BC Democritus of ancient Greece proclaims the atom to be the simplest unit of matter. All matter is composed of atoms.
300 BC Aristotle of ancient Greece declares the existence of the 4 elements: fire, air, water, and earth. All matter is made up of these 4 elements and matter has 4 properties: hot, cold, dry and wet.
300 BC – 300 AC The Advent of Alchemists. Alchemists attempted to make cheep metal into gold.

5. Timeline Continued… 1700’s
Phlogiston Theory: Phlogiston is added from air to the flame of the burning object.
Coulomb’s Law: Given two particles seperated by a certain distance, the force of repulsion is directly proportional to the product of the two charges & is inversly proportional to the distance between the two charges.
1803 Dalton’s Atomic Theory: States all matter is composed of atoms, which are small and invisible.

6. Timeline Continued…
1854 Vacuum Tube: Heinrich Geissler creates the first vacuum tube.
1885 The Proton: Euguene Goldstein discovered positive particles by using a tube filled with hydrogen gas. The positive particle had a charge equal or opposite to the electron. This was named the Proton.
1895 X-Rays: Accidently discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen while researching the glow produced by cathode rays.

7. Inspiration
1851 he was awarded the Exhibition Science Scholarship that allowed him to go to Trinity College in Cambridge as a research student at the Cavendish Lab under J.J Thomson.
He began experimenting with the transmission of radio waves.
Later on, he joined J.J Thomson on an ongoing investigation of the conduction of electricity through gases.
He turned to the field of radioactivity when it was opened by Marie Curie, Pierre, & Henri Becquerel.

8. Inspiration continued…
He was the man that created names for some of the basic principles in the field, which consisted of alpha, beta, gamma rays, the half-life and daughter atoms.

9. Experiments
The greatest contribution to physics occured in Investigations into the scattering of alpha rays and nature of the inner structure of the atom which caused scattering led to his concept of the nucleus.
In the alpha particle experiment, he discovered the atomic nucleus and developed a model of the atom that was similar to the solar system. Similar to planets, electrons orbited a center, sun-like nucleus.

10. Another Experiment Gold Foil Experiment:
In 1909, with help from Hans Geigher, they set up an experiment that fired a beam of alpha particles at a thin metal foil
Alpha particles is one type of radiation given off by radioactive elements, like uranium
Rutherford reasoned that they would serve as a good proble of the atomic stucture of matter

11. Conclusion
Rutherford and the other scientists he worked with can deduce that:
All of the protons are crammed inside a tiny, massive nucleus. About ten thousand times smaller than the atom as a whole.
The atom is almost consisted of empty space
Alpha rays is one type of radiation given off by radioactive elements. Also alpha rays are known to be high speed nuclei.

12. New Technology New inventions that came up from his experiments are:
Rutherford-Geiger tube later known as the smoke detector (after a few enhancements)
With Sir Mark Oliphant, developed the first nuclear weapon from the Manhatten Project.

13. Atomic Models: Rutherford
Passed + Charged Particles through gold foil
Most passed right through
Atom is mostly empty space
Some bounced off at odd angles
Nucleus must be +
Calculate size of nucleus

14. Rutherford’s Gold Foil Experiment
start
experiment
DO NOT OPEN
RADIOACTIVE
MATERIAL
INSIDE + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
LOOK INSIDE
THE GOLD

15. Rutherford’s Work What's Different This Time??? start experiment
DO NOT OPEN
RADIOACTIVE
MATERIAL
INSIDE + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
LOOK INSIDE
THE GOLD

16. Rutherford’s Model

17. Questions
After the alpha particle experiment, another question formed. Since the nucleus and its electrons are oppositly charged, and they attract eachother, what stops the electrons from being pulled into the nucleus.
The answer to this question came quickly to Nels Bohr, who joined the team at Manchester. He referred to Planck’s Quantum and concluded that an electron can’t radiate continuously. Also, at the lowest energy orbit, the electron can’t fall any further and is safe from being sucked into the nucleus.

18. Bibliography