[Fun science!] #2. The story of Rutherford and quantum mechanics
Fun science!
The story of Rutherford and quantum mechanics
This article has been translated by @zoethehedgehog
Original article in Korean
#1. The story of Rutherford and quantum mechanics
Rutherford was bulky and had a loud voice.
Image Credit : Wikimedia Commons
Furthermore, he did not have the standard look of a scholar.
The New York Times reporter thought he was an Australian farmer.
Reporter: “Who is the Australian farmer sitting next to me?
His voice is three times louder than other people.”
He was an intuitive person.
He was great at experiments and discovered a great deal of things.
Experimental genius!
He thought physics was the only ‘real’ science.
Besides physics, he referred other science areas as ‘stamp collecting.’
Rutherford: Science is physics or stamp collecting.
A: Why stamp collecting?
B: I think it means you can collect it if you try.
But ironically, the Nobel price he received was not the Nobel prize in physics.
It was a prize in chemistry.
Rutherford: Receiving a Nobel prize in chemistry is more fascinating than the change of elements. (Haha..)
He left Cavendish at 1898.
Then he became professor of the McGill University. After that he went to the Manchester University at 1907.
Image Credit : Wikimedia Commons
Manchester University had a good laboratory, but most importantly, it had an excellent assistant, Hans Geiger.
Hans Geiger, Image Credit : Wikimedia Commons
Geiger works like a loyal slave.
He’s a good person.
A: Is that a compliment?
The radiation comes from radioactive material.
Alpha ray- Beta ray- Gamma ray
The alpha ray is a flow of alpha particles which are positive electricity.
Rutherford and Geiger discovered that it luminates when the alpha particle is bumped against the fluorescent screen.
Rutherford: Now we can discover how much alpha particle comes out and where it is!
Rutherford shot alpha particles at the platinum film.
Rutherford to Geiger ‘Count it.’
Geiger to Ernest Marsden. ‘Count it.'
Rutherford : A professor
Geiger : An assistant
Ernest Marsden: An undergraduate.
Rutherford: 'I doubt that anything will happen.’
But surprisingly some of the alpha particles bounced greatly.
It bumped in to the platinum film and bounced out in an angle bigger than a 90 degree angle.
At 1911 he made an atomic model based on the experiment.
The atom’s insides were mostly empty and there were lots of positive energy .
Image Credit : Wikimedia Commons
Rutherford: Great. According to this model the size of an atom is 10⁻¹⁰
meters and the nucleus of an atom is 10⁻¹⁵ meters.
Let’s verify it!
Geiger: Hmm.. To verify it we would need to count 100 million alpha particles.
(Rutherford and Geiger looks at Marsden.)
Marsden: :O
p.s.
Sadly, Geiger becomes a Nazi follower in the future.
Tip U for anyone that corrects wrong information J
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very great article!
Really interesting article until the Nazi part, really didn't expect that he was a nazi! but thank you for the article!
Read about Rutherford and Bohar in my 9th grade. You have added some interesting facts about him in this post that made it special. Thanks for sharing. Keep twisting the posts with such facts that most of the people don't know.
Rutherford is a man made the future of the human