1911
Ernest Rutherford articulates his model of the atom, at the center of which exists a nucleus containing the majority of the atom's mass and all of its positive charge.
Ernest Rutherford articulates his model of the atom, at the center of which exists a nucleus containing the majority of the atom's mass and all of its positive charge.
Marie and Pierre Curie discover polonium and radium.
French physicist Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity.
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers x-rays.
The British Admiralty accepts Leo Szilard's offer to turn over his patents.
James Chadwick wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovery of the neutron.
The British War Office rejects Leo Szilard's offer to turn over to them his patents of nuclear energy for free, an offer made to bring them under British secrecy laws.
Enrico Fermi discovers the principle of neutron moderation, and the enhanced capture of slow neutrons.
Ida Noddack publishes a paper in Zeitshrift fur Angewandte Chemie arguing that the anomalous radioactivities produced by neutron bombardment of uranium may be due to the atom splitting into smaller pieces.
Szilard files a patent application describing the use of neutron-induced chain reactions to create explosions and the concept of the critical mass.