From Francisca Wheeler, Withington Girls' School
Manchester
The generally informative article by Sheldon Glashow was not strong on
historical accuracy
(“Blessed is the weak”, 11 October, p 28).
Both the date and
place for Ernest Rutherford’s alpha-scattering experiment were wrong.
The experiment was set up in 1910 and carried out at Manchester University by
Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden under the supervision of Rutherford. The
laboratory is said to be weakly radioactive to this day.
Manchester is certainly blessed to have been the site of this significant
advance in our understanding of the atomic nucleus.
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