Science of Yesteryear, February 7th, 2009
On this day in 1932, the “neutron” was described in an article in the journal Nature by its discoverer, James Chadwick, who coined the name for this neutral particle he discovered present in the nucleus of atoms. By bombarding beryllium with alpha particles, Chadwick discovered the neutron for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935.
There was a time when it was believed that the atom was the smallest particle there is, that nothing smaller could be discovered. We knew nothing about the neutron, proton, electron, quarks, etc. I think of what has happened in the field of science in the last 150 years, and I’m astonished. It was only about 75 years ago that we first learned of neutrons, but think of the amazingly huge amount of knowledge that is based solely on that discovery. This same line of thinking can be applied to other aspects of physics, biology, genetics, astronomy, medicine, and all the sciences alike.
