As part of an experiment with x-rays in 1909, Rutherford was shooting a beam of alpha particles (or alpha rays, emitted by the radioactive element radium) at a sheet of gold foil only 1/3000 of an ...

Scientists based in Manchester, not the US, made the "key breakthrough" in splitting the atom, despite Donald Trump's claims ...

1909-1911 Rutherford (and Geiger and Marsden) Some positively charged particles fired at gold foil bounced back when they were expected to pass straight through. Atoms have a central positive nucleus.