WIREDGOV

Webcast of the lecture by Professor Jim Al-Khalili now available (link opens in a new window).

Exactly one hundred years ago, in May 1911, the New Zealand born scientist, Ernest Rutherford, published a paper in which he explained a puzzling experiment that had been carried out in Manchester two years earlier. It took him that long to work out what was going on.

The paper, in which Rutherford introduces the atomic nucleus, changed our world forever. Today, everyone learns about that famous experiment: the one with the alpha particles and the gold leaf. It showed for the very first time that atoms, the tiny building blocks of everything in the Universe, have internal structure that we can see.

This lecture, celebrating the centenary of Rutherford's paper, will look back at this work that marked the birth of nuclear science. More importantly, it will give many insights into the greatest experimental physicist of all time: How did he come to his momentous conclusions about the atom? What did he think of the potential of nuclear power? Why did he win his Nobel Prize for chemistry, not physics? And why was he known as The Crocodile?

You can see a recreation (link opens in a new window) of Rutherford's experiment as part of STFC's Backstage Science project.