As the lawyer slowly came out of the anesthesia after surgery, he said, "Why are all the blinds drawn, doctor?"
"There's a big fire across the street", the doctor replied. "We didn't want you to think the operation was a failure."
Sir Ernest MarsdenBorn 19 Feb 1889; died 15 Dec 1970 at age 81.British-born New Zealand nuclear physicist who worked under Ernest Rutherford investigating atomic structure with Hans Geiger. Marsden visually counted scintillations from alpha particles after passing through gold foil and striking a phosphorescent screen. That some of these were observed scattered at surprisingly large angles led to Rutherford's theory of the nucleus as the massive, tiny centre of the atom. Later, Marsden's own experiments, working in New Zealand, hinted suggested transmutation of elements was possible when alpha particles bombarding nitrogen nuclei produced scattered particles of greater speed than the original radiation (subsequently shown to be 14N transmuting to 17O).« |
