He left teaching because he was awarded a scholarship to study at Cambridge University in England.After completing his degree at the university in New Zealand, his job was teaching rebellious children.When Rutherford's birth was registered, his name was mistakenly spelled 'Earnest.'.His parents were originally from Hornchurch, Essex, England, but they emigrated to New Zealand to raise flax and start a family. He was the son of farmer James Rutherford and his wife, Martha. Rutherford was the 4th of 12 children.He is sometimes called the Father of Nuclear Physics.This is the Rutherford model of the atom. By measuring how a beam of alpha particles was deflected when striking a thin sheet of gold foil, the scientists determined (a) the nucleus had a positive charge and (b) most of an atom's mass was in the nucleus.

Rutherford's gold foil experiment, also known as the Geiger–Marsden experiments, was not a single experiment, but a set of experiments conducted by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden under Rutherford's supervision, between 19. This experiment was fundamental to the development of modern chemistry and physics, as it helped describe the nature of the atomic nucleus. Lord Rutherford pioneered the orbital theory of the atom with his famous gold foil experiment, through which he discovered Rutherford scattering off the nucleus.In 1920, he hypothesized the existence of the neutron.In 1919, he became the first person to artificially induce a nuclear reaction in a stable element.Rutherford and Bertram Borden Boltwood (Yale University) proposed a 'decay series' to categorize elements.Rutherford is credited with discovering the radioactive gaseous element radon, while at McGill University in Montreal.In 1903, Rutherford and Frederick Soddy formulated the laws of radioactive decay and described the disintegration theory of atoms.He demonstrated radioactivity was the spontaneous disintegration of atoms.Identified alpha particles as helium nuclei.He coined the terms alpha, beta, and gamma rays.He discovered alpha and beta particles.

Thomson's atomic theory