One hundred years ago, Ernest Rutherford decided to shoot some stuff at atoms and toppled then-current atomic theory. Physicist and blogger Rhett Allain walks through the rise of six atomic models.

Bohr’s atomic orbits . S. Egts. In Bohr’s model of the hydrogen atom, one electron, carrying a negative electrical charge, circles a nucleus consisting of a single proton, which has a positive ...

Photo: Niels Bohr's research notes for his new atomic theory Rutherford's find came from a very strange experience. Everyone at that time imagined the atom as a "plum pudding." That is, it was ...

Acceptance of this model grew after it was modified with quantum theory by Niels Bohr. For his work with radiation and the atomic nucleus, Rutherford received the 1908 Nobel Prize in chemistry.