Atomic physics although they could be described and classified by their properties (in bulk). The invention of the periodic system of elements by Mendeleev was another great step forward. The true beginning of atomic physics is marked by the discovery of spectral lines and attempts to describe the phenomenon, most notably by Joseph von Fraunhofer. The study of these lines led to the Bohr atom model and to the birth of quantum mechanics. In seeking to explain atomic spectra an entirely new mathematical model of matter was revealed. As far as atoms and their electron shells were concerned, not only did this
Discovery of the neutron also measured how the new radiation impacted the atoms of various gases. He found that the new radiation consisted of not gamma rays, but uncharged particles with about the same mass as the proton. These particles were neutrons. Chadwick won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery in 1935. The year 1932 was later referred to as the "annus mirabilis" for nuclear physics in the Cavendish Laboratory, with discoveries of the neutron, artificial nuclear disintegration by the Cockcroft–Walton particle accelerator, and the positron. Given the problems of the "proton–electron model", it was quickly accepted that the atomic nucleus is