Who Discovered the Proton

View PDF | Print View
by: musarratsh
Total views: 3
Word Count: 584
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 Time: 3:32 AM
0 comments

Ernest Rutherford is credited to discovering proton which is a nucleon in the year 1918 when he noticed that after nitrogen gas was shot with alpha particles, hydrogen signatures were indicated by scintillation detectors. For any one to be able to understand this person who discovered the proton, the history of science will have to be revisited. This person resolved that the hydrogen could only have come from nitrogen thereby meaning that nitrogen must consist of hydrogen nuclei. He later suggested that this hydrogen nucleus which was then known to contain atomic number 1 which is basically an elementary particle should be called proton. This is what made him to be credited with proton discovery and hence the title "father of nuclear physics".

Ernest Rutherford was also credit with several other scientific discoveries that included the atomic nucleus of alpha and beta radiation as well as the radioactive transformation of atoms. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in the year 1908 and this was as a result of his theories that touched on the radioactive transformation of atoms. He discovered that nucleuses as well as atoms comprise charges particles. After he had discovered the proton he started shooting alpha particles towards neon particles and after creating the hydrogen element he thought that the basic particle must be among the ones building blocks of life and atoms.

Ernest was also responsible for various experiments and all the experiments resulted in the emission of hydrogen nuclei every time an atom was transmitted with another. This is where the hydrogen nucleus was proved to have an essential role in the atomic structure. He is responsible for coining the proton terminology even though there were other physicists who were working along side him. Neutrons as well as protons are nucleons which are capable of being bound by nuclear force and also converted to atomic nuclei. There are several protons that does not contain any neutrons and these are generally a nucleus of common hydrogen atom isotope. The several physicists that were able to work with Ernest included E. Marsden, Frederick Soddy as well as H. Geiger among others but only Ernest is famous when it comes to who discovered the protons.

The theories of Ernest are the basis for the accepted atomic theory that was proposed by a gentleman known as Niels Bohr and this is where the atoms were composed of a heavy nucleus that was made of protons and neutrons with electrons in orbit. Ernest was born in New Zealand in the year 1871 and it is here that he attained three degrees and later left the country in 1895 because of the failure to get employment. Ernest was later to work in McGill University, University of Manchester as well as Cambridge University and then he later became a professor as well as a director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge in 1919.

In 1914, he was formerly knighted and in 1931 he was raised to the peerage. A knight is a non hereditary title that is given on the basis of personal merit or service to country. The rank of a knight is one less of a baronet. In 1933, four years before his demise he was named the president of the academic Assistance Council whose goal was to provide assistance to several Jewish scholars who were in one way or another affected by the Nazi persecution. He is still a respected man and many physicists agree that he made enormous contributions to science.

About the Author

This article touched the basics of the topic. I have 2 more resources related to the above. They are who discovered the proton and who discovered protons. Do consider reading them.