Radioactive Transformations (Paperback, Revised)

Originally published over one hundred years ago, Radioactive Transformations describes Ernest Rutherford's Nobel Prize-winning research on radioactive matter. Rutherford outlines the scientific investigations that led to and coincided with Rutherford's own research - including the work of Wilhem Rontgen, J.J. Thomson, and Marie Curie - and explains in detail the experiments that provided a glimpse at special relativity, quantum mechanics, and other concepts that would shape twentieth-century physics. This new edition of Rutherford's classic work features a comprehensive introduction by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek that provides historical context and also explains how Rutherford's early research led to a better understanding of topics as diverse as the age of our planet, the workings of the atom's nucleus, and the fusion in stars.