Ernest Rutherford

It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.

I am going to call this the nucleus.

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

We have no reason to suppose that the atom is an indivisible entity.

The atom is mostly empty space.

I have been asked to give a lecture on the subject of the atom. I am afraid I shall have to disappoint you, for I know nothing about it.

Science is not a game, it is a serious business.

The energy of the atom is a million times the energy of the molecule.

The great thing in science is to have a problem.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...

I am a simple man, but I have made some discoveries.

We are at the beginning of a new era in physics.

The transformation of matter is a new type of chemical change.

The alpha particle is a helium atom carrying two positive charges.

The atom is not a hard, impenetrable sphere.

The nucleus is exceedingly small compared with the atom as a whole.

The future of physics lies in the study of the nucleus.

The atom is a miniature solar system.

The energy released in radioactive processes is enormous.

The discovery of radioactivity has opened up a new world.