Nucleus-nucleus scattering and the Rutherford experiment

This short paper shows that Rutherford first discussed in 1906, when he was at McGill, the possibility of determining the structure of the atom by measuring the diffusion of alpha particles in an experiment used to measure the retardation of alpha particles when passing through matter. The famous experiments of Geiger and Marsden that led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus by Rutherford in 1911 is then presented. That is followed by a discussion of some of the very early works of colleagues of Rutherford that improved on these early experiments in order to determine the size of the atomic nucleus and the interaction that held the nucleus together. Finally. a list of the main early improvements to the interpretations of nucleus-nucleus scattering is presented.