The idea of atoms as the ultimate, indivisible particles of matter dates back to the pre-Socratic philosophers of Ancient Greece. It worked amazing well for many hundreds of years, and was the bedrock on which our burgeoning understanding of the elements- the new science of chemistry - was built from the 18th century onwards. All that changed 100 years ago this year, with the first glimpse of something nestling at the heart of the atom, something vastly smaller than it, yet containing almost all its mass: the atomic nucleus. The impact of this discovery was so profound that the past century has sometimes been called "the nuclear age". Well into the 21st century, however, the interior workings of the nucleus are still far from perfectly understood
展开▼
