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Lecture
Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
This lecture covers the history of the atom from Democritus to Rutherford, focusing on the Rutherford scattering experiment with alpha particles on gold foil. It explains the concepts of cross section, differential cross section, and relativistic kinematics. The lecture delves into the kinematics of elastic scattering, the derivation of the Rutherford cross section, and its relativistic extension. It also discusses backscattering on nuclei, Coulomb law testing, nucleus size determination, and nucleus charge measurement. The summary highlights the significance of the Rutherford experiment in understanding atomic structure and sets the stage for further advancements in particle physics.