Nuclear Physics to Fission

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Nuclear Physics to Fission
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Ernest Rutherford

• 1911-1912 Rutherford proposed nuclear model of
  atom
• 1919 Succeeded J. J. Thomson as director of
  Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge
• 1920s and 1930s Made Cavendish a Mecca of
  nuclear physics

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James Chadwick and Neutron

• Irene and Frederick Joliot-Curie and others
  discovered new penetrating rays
• James Chadwick proved in 1932 that the rays were
  new fundamental particles that Rutherford had
  speculated on a neutral particle with mass
  similar to protons
• Rutherford Nobel for Chadwick and the Curies
  would surely win theirs
• Curies discovery of artificial radioactivity in
  1934 and Nobel
• Also in 1932 Discovery of Positron by Carl
  Anderson

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Path to Fission

• Slow neutron effects Enrico Fermi in 1930s
• Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, and Fritz Strassmann
• Bombardment of uranium with neutrons
• Meitner forced to flee Germany in 1938
• Christmas 1938 Hahn and Strassmanns
  experimental results and Meitner and Frischs
  theoretical explanation

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