Although he earned his Nobel Prize in 1908 for the discovery of radioactive emissions, his greatest contributions came in the following years with the discovery of the nucleus and the proton of an atom. Affiliation at the time of the award: Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark. Died: 18 November 1962, Copenhagen, Denmark. This conclusion led to the theory that electrons exist in energy levels around the positive nucleus and have their own distinct properties in each of their energy levels. Ernest Rutherford aptly earned the moniker of Father of Nuclear Physics for his contributions to the atomic theory. Born: 7 October 1885, Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1909, together with Hans Geiger and Ernest Mardsen, he performed the Geiger-Mardsen experiment, which demonstrated the nuclear nature of atoms by reflecting alpha particles passing through a thin, golden lamina. This theory was adopted by Niels Bohr in 1913 who theorised that electrons could orbit the nucleus in a circular orbits and that the distance of the electron to the nucleus was fixed unless it moved between energy levels with the absorption or emission of light. Rutherford performed his most famous work after winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 for his theory of atomic structure. But Rutherford was an industrious researcher who many remarkable contributions to science, including three discoveries that revolutionised our view of matter. Max Planck and Albert Einstein in the field of physics postulated that light energy can be absorbed and emitted as quanta. This year is the 100 year anniversary since Ernest Rutherford published his seminal paper describing his discovery of the atomic nucleus. It was not until the earlier 20th Century that the scientific community arrived at the modern day atomic model. Now the atomic model had a central particle and electrons around it, reversing he plum pudding model of Thomson. After tracing many particles and examining the patterns, Rutherford deduced that the atom must have nearly all its mass, and positive charge, in a central nucleus about 10,000 times smaller than. Based on these results, Rutherford proposed the nuclear model of the atom. He named this new fundamental particle as a proton. Rutherfords gold foil experiment showed that the atom is mostly empty space with a tiny, dense, positively-charged nucleus. Rutherford conducted a number of experiments with hydrogen nuclei and nitrogen in air using alpha particles and after a number of theories concluded that the hydrogen atom made up other atoms. Rutherford further followed this up in 1917 when he proved that a hydrogen nucleus (1 proton) is present in other nuclei of different elements most notably nitrogen gas in the air.
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