""" It’s not that he disdained fancy and expensive equipment; his students Ernest Walton, John Cockcroft and Piotr Kapitza did construct giant machines accelerating particles to high speeds and generating intense magnetic fields. But in his own work Rutherford exemplified the very ideal of the minimalist. An illustration was his beautiful discovery of radioactive transmutation on which he collaborated with his student Ernest Marsden. Marsden had observed that when he bombarded hydrogen atoms in a sealed box with a scintillation screen with alpha particles, he predictably observed hydrogen atoms striking the scintillation screen and setting off flashes. Things got more interesting when he realized that he could observe scintillations even when the box was emptied of hydrogen. This is when Rutherford took over. He realized that the goal was basically one of exclusion; if he could systematically exclude possible suspects that could react with the alpha particle and produce scintillations, he could determine the culprit. It was with this intent that he pumped the box with pure oxygen, carbon dioxide and dry air. Only in the last case did the scintillations double, indicating that there was something in the air that was producing hydrogens. After eliminating every source of contamination, Rutherford realized the revolutionary interpretation of the experiment; the alpha particles were interacting with the nitrogen in air to create oxygen and spit out hydrogen atoms. In one fell swoop Rutherford had realized the dream of alchemists, in spirit if not in every detail; he had literally changed one element into another. There were few other experiments in the history of science that demonstrated mankind’s awesome intellect and mastery over nature.""" Rutherford is that dude. Gold foil experiment told us what the atom looked like. We use snip of information to make cellphones and medicine. Plastics, rocket fuel, and microprocessors. Study the cell to know what it does to know how to fix it. Vaccines, alloys, and televisions. Freon. "Nature of the Chemical Bond" by Linus Pauling. The Bohr model came from that. Nice shirt.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 06:54:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015