Feature

Atomic Anatomy

A century ago, Ernest Rutherford inaugurated the nuclear age

By Tom Siegfried

April 22, 2011 at 11:11 am - More than 2 years ago

Ernest Rutherford grew up in the 19th century. He created the 20th.

Ernest Rutherford won a Nobel Prize for research on the nature of radioactivity. Bain collection/Library of Congress

MOSTLY EMPTY Rutherford revealed that almost all of an atom’s mass is concentrated in a very small and dense nucleus (orange), shown here roughly 1,000 times larger than its actual size relative to the whole atom.