Lowell.Hutchinson.MMA.Spring2010AtomicHistory

Ernest Rutherford (30 August 1871–19 October 1937) was a physicist who became known as the major player in nuclear physics and was even known as “the father of physics,” and lived in New Zealand. He was originally from Hornchurch, Essex England. He studied at Havelock School and then Nelson College and gained a scholarship to study at Canterbury College. His discoveries started in 1911 when he discovered an atoms positive charge is concentrated in a small nucleus in the center of an atom. He also came up with the planetary model for the atom, through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering in his gold foil experiment. His gold foil experiment consisted of him shooting atoms through a very thin sheet of gold foil. Most of the atoms when right through the gold sheet, some bounced at an angle and some hit the sheet and came back in the same direction. This is how he concluded the theory of a nucleouse. He was also the first person to split the atom in 1917.    J.J Thompson was born on December 18, 1856 in Manchester England. He went to Owens College in Manchester and then Trinity in 1880. He then later became a professor at Cambridge where he documented most of his experiments. In 1897 he discovered that cathode rays had to of had some sort of negatively charged particles within them. Thompson was trying to investigate whether or not cathode rays could be deflected by an electric field. His first experiment failed in his first experiment with cathode rays and magnetism then moved on the disc. He constructed a cathode ray tube and created an almost perfect vacuum inside the design. Then he coated one end with phosphorescent paint. From this he discovered the cathode rays did bend under the influence of an electric field, in a direction indicating a negative charge. JJ received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937 for proving wavelike properties in electrons in this experiment. He ended up dying on august 30, 1940.     Robert Millikan was born on the 22nd of March, 1868, in Morrison, Illinois. He attended Maquoketa High School in Iowa. For college he went to Oberlin College and then got his Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University in 1895. From there, he went from university to university teaching all around Europe, gaining knowledge of different experiments from different parts of Europe. His most famous was when he discovered the charge and mass of an electron in his oil drop experiment. Robert Millikan discovered the charge and mass of an electron. First, Millikan had oil drops falling through a chamber and wait until they reached terminal velocity. Next he filled the same chamber with X-rays, to get rid of the electrons. Then when the oil droplets his the x-rays, they became negatively charged and he created a magnetic field within the chamber by attaching a battery. By adjusting the voltage till the force of electric field balanced with the force of gravity, the oil droplets would suspend in air start to rise. With this knowledge he used a few formulas and found the charge of an electron and Robert won the Nobel Peace Prize for this in 1923. He ended up dying December 19th 1953