As part of an experiment with x-rays in 1909, Rutherford was shooting a beam of alpha particles (or alpha rays, emitted by the radioactive element radium) at a sheet of gold foil only 1/3000 of an ...

Between 1914 and 1919 Rutherford conducted many experiments at the University by bombarding nitrogen gas with alpha particles. These experiments ... given the detailed picture of the reaction revealed ...