Ernest Rutherford

We all know that an atom looks like a tiny solar system. It has a dense mass in the middle, with smaller objects orbiting around it. That picture was first drawn by Ernest Rutherford, who was born 150 years ago today.
Rutherford studied math and science in his native country, New Zealand. He did graduate work in England, then began his professional career in Canada. He moved back to England a few years later, and stayed there the rest of his life.
Rutherford spent much of his career studying radioactivity and the structure of the atom. He discovered several radioactive elements. And he realized that the contemporary idea of the atom was wrong. Instead of a solid mass, it was mostly empty space. It consisted of a small, heavy nucleus with smaller particles orbiting around it. The nucleus contained all of the atom’s positive electric charge, while the orbiting particles contained the negative charge.
Rutherford also discovered a way to characterize individual atoms — a finding that allow