Alpha, beta and gamma rays; radioactive decay law
Rayos alfa, beta y gamma; ley de desintegración radiactiva
- Date
- 1899-1903 · confidence high
- Place
- McGill University, Montreal, Canada
- Credited to
- Ernest Rutherford; Frederick Soddy; Paul Villard
- People
- 👤 Ernest Rutherford1871–1937👤 Frederick Soddy1877–1956👤 Paul Villard1860–1934
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Rutherford distinguishes two radiations by their penetrating power (alpha and beta), Villard discovers gamma rays, and Rutherford and Soddy demonstrate that radioactivity is the spontaneous transmutation of one element into another with a characteristic half-life. It dismantles the immutability of the elements.
Villard discovered gamma rays in Paris in 1900; the exponential decay law dates from 1902-1903.
What it led to
- Radiometric dating of rocks and the age of the Earth
- Nuclear physics and the atomic nucleus
- Isotopes (Soddy, 1913)
- Concept of random process in physics
Built on
- Becquerel's radioactivity
- The Curies' radium
Made possible
- The atomic nucleus1911
- Geiger–Nuttall law1911
- The proton and the first artificial nuclear transmutation1917-1919
- Geiger counter1908-1928
- Uranium-lead and carbon-14 dating
- Alpha sources for scattering experiments