Rutherford and the Birth of Nuclear Physics

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford interpreted the earlier experimental results of his students, Geiger and Marsden, as showing that at the centre of the atom there was a small, dense nucleus with a positive electric charge. This insight was to fundamentally change our understanding of the structure of the physical world and led to the birth of nuclear physics. Filmed at The Royal Society, London on Fri 20 Mar 2009 -