Prof. Kruse Gives Invited Talk at Rutherford Centennial Colloquium at CERN, Geneva

Prof. Kruse Gives Invited Talk at Rutherford Centennial Colloquium at CERN, Geneva

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Ernest Rutherford's discovery of the atomic nucleus using alpha-particle scattering experiments. The event was celebrated at CERN in Switzerland on November 15 by an afternoon colloquium, which was webcast live worldwide. The full program of talks can be found here. Prof. Mark Kruse of Duke Physics closed the event with a talk on how Rutherford has inspired young physicists from New Zealand, where Rutherford was born, grew up and was educated (as was Kruse), before moving to England to pursue his doctorate and eventually carry out his ground breaking experiments. Other talks included a family history by Rutherford's great grand-daughter, Prof. Mary Fowler (Dean of Research at Royal Holloway University, London), the road to understanding the structure of the proton by Prof. Jerome Friedman (MIT, 1990 Nobel Laureate), and Rutherford's legacy in Nuclear Physics by Prof. Sean Freeman of the University of Manchester where Rutherford's alpha-scattering experiments were conducted.

Photo: Participants at the Rutherford Centennial Colloquium at CERN (from left to right): Jerry Friedman (MIT), John Campbell (University of Canterbury), Mark Kruse (Duke), Rolf Heuer (CERN Director General), John Adank (New Zealand Ambassador to Geneva), Mary Fowler (Royal Holloway, University of London), Ian Hinchliffe (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Emmanuel Tsesmelis (CERN), Sean Freeman (University of Manchester)--photo courtesy of CERN