Chemistry J.J. Thomson of Cambridge University discovered the electron and soon after the French scientist Becquerel as well as the couple Pierre and Marie Curie investigated the phenomenon of radioactivity. In a series of pioneering scattering experiments Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester discovered the internal structure of the atom and the existence of the proton, classified and explained the different types of radioactivity and successfully transmuted the first element by bombarding nitrogen with alpha particles. His work on atomic structure was improved on by his students, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and Henry Moseley. The electronic theory of chemical
Pirkko Eskola using the Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator, bombarding a target of californium-249 with nitrogen nuclei. There was debate between Russia and America over who first discovered of Rutherfordium. Erkola studied the alpha decay of Nobelium 255 and 257. She went on to work on beta-unstable Alpha particle emitting nuclei. Using Alpha-particle spectroscopy she studied lawrencium isotopes 255 - 260 and Mendelevium isotopes 248 - 252. Her husband, Kari Eskola, was a professor of physics at the University of Helsinki. She went on to have a career in science education. She was an editor of the Finnish Physical Society journal "Physica Fennica".