1. Ernest Rutherford's Contribution to the Discovery of the Model of an Atom

2. Democritus’s Discovery
Before Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of the model of the atom, there was many scientists who were trying to find out the same solution. The first to do research and build a model of an atom was Democritus, a Greek scientist. The first question that he asked was, “If I broke a tree or an object into smaller pieces, what would happen”? Democritus came up with the conclusion that eventually there will be a peice that could not be broken, which would be invisible. Atom is another word for invisible. Democritus had a mentor named Leucippus, and he was the original founder of the atomic theory, but it was later adopted by Democritus. The atomic theory stated that “The universe is composed of two elements: the atoms and the void in which they exist and move.” They proposed that matter is made up of atoms separated by empty space through which the atoms moves.

3. John Dalton
Prior to John Dalton’s research, Democritus proposed the atom as being just a spherical figure. Dalton’s atomic theory stated, all matter is made up of atoms, atoms are indestructible, all atoms of a given element are the same in mass and properties, compounds are made up of two or more different kinds of atoms, and a chemical reaction is rearrangement of atoms. Dalton discovered that certain gases only could be combined in certain proportions even if two different compounds shared the same element or compound.

4. J. Jonah Jameson Thomson
Before the contribution of J.J.J. Thomson, Dalton stated that are invisible and indestructible. He also said that atoms are formed by a combination of two or more different kinds of atoms. Thomson discovered the electron which he did by testing with cathode rays. He proposed that cathode rays were negatively charged. He also tested charged particles in neon gases. Thomson change Dalton's model because he had different elements that consist of different atoms. Thomson’s model had atoms that consists of electrons. Thomson’s model is called the plum pudding model.

5. Ernest Rutherford

6. Ernest’s Contribution to the Model of the Atom
Before the contribution of Ernest Rutherford, J.J.J. Thomson proposed the idea that experiments that have cathode ray tubes shows that all atoms contain subatomic or negatively charged subatomic particles or electrons. Ernest’s major experiment and contribution was the gold foil experiment, which led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus and an update to the model of the atom.

7. Ernest Rutherford’s Life
Ernest Rutherford was responsible for the discoveries of radioactivity and nuclear physics. He has discovered alpha and beta rays, made laws of radioactive decay, and identified alpha particles as helium nuclei. Rutherford also proposed the structure of the nuclear atom. Rutherford finished his degree at the University of New Zealand and then he began teaching disobedient young men. He was let out from this duty by a scholarship to Cambridge University. This is where Rutherford had become J. J. Thompson’s first graduate student at the Cavendish Laboratory. Throughout Rutherford’s career he displayed his ability to work with his gift of creativity with associates, some of the people who were already established at the organizations to which he was selected and others of who he had drawn attention to as doctoral students or postgrad students. Rutherford first appointment at McGill University in Montreal, he worked with Frederick Soddy on radioactive decay. At Manchester University he work together with Hans Geiger, Niels Bohr, and H. G. J. Moseley. At the time of World War I, this Manchester research group was largely distributed, and Rutherford turned to solving problems connected with submarine detection. When the war was over, he prospered J. J. Thomson in the Cavendish Professorship at Cambridge and collected a strong research group, which included James Chadwick, which is who discovered the neutron. Rutherford received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908.

8. Sources