discovery of the atomic nucleus

Ernest Rutherford, an energetic New Zealander working in England, was studying the properties of particles spontaneously emitted by radioactive substances. Of particular interest was a positively charged, relatively heavy emission named alpha particle. Quantities of such particles are emitted by c..

The Nucleus - Rutherford and his co-workers, performed series of scattering experiments and concluded that the entire mass and the positive charge is concentrated in a very small region at the centre of the atom, known as nucleus. The radius of the nucleus is..

Rutherford and his co-workers, performed series of scattering experiments and concluded that the entire mass and the positive charge is concentrated in a very small region at the centre of the atom, known as nucleus. The radius of the nucleus is about 10 - 1 5 ..

It is the central core of the atom where the entire +ve charge and mass is concentrated. It is a tiny sphere of diameter ranging from 10 - 1 5 m to 10 - 1 4 m. A nucleus is made up of particles called neutrons and protons. A neutron does not carry any charge while a prot..

Atoms and Nuclei..

Discovery of Radioactivity - The discovery of the phenomenon of radioactivity was purely accidental. In 1896, Henry Becquerel, a French scientist accidentally found that in presence of salt of uranium, photographic plates got heavily fogged even though they were wrapped in opaqu..

Search for the missing particle - Although Rutherford's model was enormously successful at explaining the scattering of alpha particles, there was a problem when the experimental data were used to calculate the mass of the nucleus. From the results of the scattering experiments, it was po..

Electron - Discharge Tube experiments - These experiments were conducted in detail by J.J. Thomson and he studied the passage of electricity through gases at extremely low pressure in a cylindrical glass tube. It was discovered that at extremely low pressure, gases become conductors of electricity ..

In 1896, the phenomenon of radioactivity was accidentally discovered by French scientist Henri Becquerel. He was performing experiments with uranium compounds. He accidentally placed a crystal of potassium uranyl sulphate over photographic plate wrapped with usual black paper. On developing the p..

Why electron cannot exist in the nucleus? - On the basis of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, it can be shown as to why electron cannot exist within the atomic nucleus. The radius of the atomic nucleus is of the order of 10 - 1 5 m. Now, if the el..