What was rutherfords contribution to chemistry

In , his investigations into the scattering of alpha rays and the nature of the inner structure of the atom which caused such scattering led to the postulation of his concept of the "nucleus," his greatest contribution to physics.

According to him, practically the whole mass of the atom and at the same time all positive charge of the atom is concentrated in a minute space at the center. In , Niels Bohr adapted Rutherford's nuclear structure to Max Planck's quantum theory and so obtained a theory of atomic structure which, with later improvements, remains valid to this day.

In , together with H. Moseley, he used cathode rays to bombard atoms of various elements and showed that the inner structures correspond with a group of lines which characterize the elements.

Each element could then be assigned an atomic number and, more important, the properties of each element could be defined by this number. In , during his last year at Manchester, he discovered that the nuclei of certain light elements, such as nitrogen, could be "disintegrated" by the impact of energetic alpha particles coming from some radioactive source, and that during this process fast protons were emitted.

After the war he succeeded J. Thomson in the Cavendish Professorship at Cambridge and again gathered a vigorous research group, including James Chadwick, the discoverer of the neutron. Like Thomson, Rutherford garnered many honors. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for ; he was made a knight and then a peer with a seat in the House of Lords. Rhude Jr.

Phillip Broughton. Health Physicist, University of California, Berkeley. Richard McCardell. Nuclear Engineer, Idaho Falls. Thomas Cormier. On October 19, , Baron Rutherford died in Cambridge, England at age 66 from the complications of a strangulated hernia.

The largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world and decades in the making, the Large Hadron Collider started smashing atomic particles in May We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.

Ernest Everett Just was an African American biologist and educator best known for his pioneering work in the physiology of development, especially in fertilization. Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician famous for his laws of physics. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. Thomson was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose research led to the discovery of electrons.

James C. Maxwell was a 19th-century pioneer in chemistry and physics who articulated the idea of electromagnetism.