1900+-+1915

Ernest Rutherford was born August 30, 1871, and Spring Grove, New Zealand. He studied at a few different colleges including the University of New Zealand, the University of Cambridge, and Nelson College. He was considered by many to be the “father of nuclear physics”. [] Ernest Rutherford worked under JJ Thompson when Thompson made his plum pudding theory. It was in attempting to prove his theory in 1909 that he came up with his own. His experiment consisted of projecting alpha-particles through a thin sheet of gold. He expected all the particles to go straight through without a hitch, however to his surprise a few bounced of track, a couple even backwards. This proved that atoms were not just “plum pudding” but mostly empty space with a tiny, dense nucleus. (page 93) (Introductory Chemistry Essentials, thrd ed, Nivaldo J. Tro)
 * __ Ernest Rutherford __** (1871-1937)

[]

**Marie Curie 1867- 1934**



Marie was born in Warsaw, Poland. She traveled to Paris to continue her higher education and got licentiateships Physics and Math at Sobonne. It was there that she met her husband, Pierre Curie. She succeeded her husband as Doctor of Science degree and Professor of General Physics. It was hard for the couple to fund their studies and each had to do a lot of teaching to up keep the laboratory.

Radioactivity became the main interest of their studies. They succeeded in the isolation of polonium and radium. Marie’s pursuit and radiation lead to many awards. In particular was her input with Bequerel’s discovery of spontaneous radiation and her daring assumption that atoms are not indestrucable. []


 * Robert Milikan 1868-1953 **

Milikan was born in Morrison, U.S. He was the son of a reverend, and started off as a court reporter. In 1886 he began his studies at Oberlin College. After graduating he taught elementary physics for two years. In 1893 he achieved his masters in physics. This was the beginning of his greater accomplishments.

Most of Milikan’s discoveries were in electricity, optics, and molecular physics. In 1910 he proved that all electrons have the same charge and he figured out what that charge is. He did all this with the “falling-drop method”. His discoveries came with many awards and honorary doctors degrees at twenty-five universities. []