Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) came to the Cavendish Laboratory as a young man from New Zealand, and was a research student under Thomson. Using rays emitted by radioactive elements to probe deep into atoms, around 1913 he showed that Thomson's "plum pudding" model of the atom was untenable.

AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, courtesy Otto Hahn and Lawrence Badash.



© 1997- American Institute of Physics