Ernest Rutherford's family emigrated from England to New Zealand before he was born. They ran a successful farm near Nelson, where Ernest was born. One of 12 children, he liked the hard work and open ...

A part of Rutherford’s scattering experiments, this particular experiment involved shooting alpha particles at a piece of gold foil with the source, foil, and detector placed in a vacuum vessel.

In 1911 the New-Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford published a paper that was to revolutionize science. Rutherford’s famous alpha-particle scattering experiment transformed our understanding of ...

A part of Rutherford’s scattering experiments, this particular experiment involved shooting alpha particles at a piece of gold foil with the source, foil, and detector placed in a vacuum vessel.

With the International Year of the Periodic Table of Elements in full swing, John Campbell celebrates the immense contribution of Ernest Rutherford, who first split the atom 100 years ago ...