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.

“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” That quote, repeated in many articles and books, is attributed to Ernest Rutherford, widely recognized as the father of nuclear physics. However, ...

No discovery struck deeper into the scientific understanding of reality, with more profound implications for civilization, than Rutherford’s revelation of the architecture of the atom. A century ago ...