Energy is everything

Energy is everything
Ernest Rutherford. (Image: Getty)
Simon Robertson
"The Crocodile" was Ernest Rutherford's nickname, given by his colleague Pyotr Kapitsa. It came from the idea that a crocodile is always moving forward, symbolising Rutherford's forward-thinking and relentless pursuit of scientific discovery.For those living in a cave, Rutherford (1871-1937) was a New Zealand-born physicist. In 1917, at the University of Manchester, he bombarded nitrogen atoms with alpha particles (sounds fun), which led to the observation of protons being emitted, effectively splitting the atom. Legend.T...

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