Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, better known as Lord Rutherford of Nelson, was a well-known New Zealand physicist. He is widely considered as one of the best nuclear physics experimenters of all time. Rutherford contributed significantly to our understanding of atomic structure and radioactivity. Rutherford presented the Rutherford model of the atom in 1911, which stated that the atom contains a tiny, compact, positively charged nucleus at its center, with electrons surrounding it. This concept transformed the conventional view of the atom and established the groundwork for the creation of the current atomic theory. Rutherford is also famed for his gold foil experiment, which he carried out in 1909. Rutherford and his colleagues attacked a thin sheet of gold foil with alpha particles and examined the scattering patterns. Rutherford concluded from the surprising results that atoms possess a concentrated, positively charged nucleus that comprises just a small proportion of the atomic volume. ...