louis de broglie discovered that the nuclei of atoms contained neutrons that carries no charge.
louis de broglie discovered that the nuclei of atoms contained neutrons that carries no charge.
who discovered that the nuclei of atoms contained neutrons that carries no charge?
louis de broglie
for his discovery of the neutron, chadwick was awarded the hughes medal by the royal society in 1932, the nobel prize in physics in 1935, the copley medal in 1950 and the franklin medal in 1951. his discovery of the neutron made it possible to produce elements heavier than uranium in the laboratory by the capture of slow neutrons followed by beta decay. unlike the positively charged alpha particles, which are repelled by the electrical forces present in the nuclei of other atoms, neutrons do not need to overcome any coulomb barrier, and can therefore penetrate and enter the nuclei of even the heaviest elements such as uranium. this inspired enrico fermi to investigate the nuclear reactions brought about by collisions of nuclei with slow neutrons, work for which fermi would receive the nobel prize in 1938.
james chadwick
the discovery of the neutron immediately gave scientists a new tool for probing the properties of atomic nuclei. alpha particles had been used over the previous decades in scattering experiments, but such particles, which are helium nuclei, have +2 charge. this charge makes it difficult for alpha particles to overcome the coulomb repulsive force and interact directly with the nuclei of atoms. since neutrons have no electric charge, they do not have to overcome this force to interact with nuclei. almost coincident with its discovery, neutrons were used by norman feather, chadwick's colleague and protege, in scattering experiments with nitrogen. feather was able to show that neutrons interacting with nitrogen nuclei scattered to protons or induced nitrogen to disintegrate to form boron with the emission of an alpha particle. feather was therefore the first to show that neutrons produce nuclear disintegrations.
discovery of the neutron