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Rutherford stated, "...we must conclude that the nitrogen atom is disintegrated," while the newspapers stated he had split the atom. This was the first observation of a nuclear reaction, that is, a reaction in which particles from one decay are used to transform another atomic nucleus. It also offered a new way to study the nucleus.
Meitner and Frisch had correctly interpreted Hahn's results to mean that the nucleus of uranium had split roughly in half. The first two reactions that the Berlin group had observed were light elements created by the breakup of uranium nuclei; the third, the 23-minute one, was a decay into the real element 93. [103]
Rutherford is known as "the father of nuclear physics" because his research, and work done under him as laboratory director, established the nuclear structure of the atom and the essential nature of radioactive decay as a nuclear process.
Regardless of who was first to split the atom, the work of Rutherford, Walton, Cockcroft, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Geiger, Marsden and a host of other scientific pioneers paved the way for the nuclear ...
The current theoretical model of the atom involves a dense nucleus surrounded by a probabilistic "cloud" of electrons. Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. The definition of the word "atom" has changed over the years in response to scientific discoveries.
Nuclear binding energy, the energy required to split a nucleus of an atom. Nuclear potential energy , the potential energy of the particles inside an atomic nucleus. Nuclear reaction , a process in which nuclei or nuclear particles interact, resulting in products different from the initial ones; see also nuclear fission and nuclear fusion .
An atom consists of a nucleus of protons and generally neutrons, surrounded by an electromagnetically bound swarm of electrons. The chemical elements are distinguished from each other by the number of protons that are in their atoms. For example, any atom that contains 11 protons is sodium, and any atom that contains 29 protons is copper.
The fine structure energy corrections can be obtained by using perturbation theory.To perform this calculation one must add three corrective terms to the Hamiltonian: the leading order relativistic correction to the kinetic energy, the correction due to the spin–orbit coupling, and the Darwin term coming from the quantum fluctuating motion or zitterbewegung of the electron.