Nuclear Physics

Nuclear Physics is the branch of Physics that deals with the forces and interactions within the nucleus of an atom, and between separate nuclei.

The field of nuclear physics is considered to have begun in 1896, with Henri Bequerel.UCLA: Early Nuclear Physics He was studying the radiation emitted by phosphorescent materials when he noticed that Uranium salts emitted a new form of radiation. He called this phenomenon Uranic rays. In 1897, Marie Curie selected the field of Uranic rays for her thesis, continuing Becquerel's work. She found that other elements emitted similar rays, which she called radioactivity. A few years later, Ernest Rutherford observed that some substances spontaneously transformed into other elements. Rutherford also found that a fraction of a radioactive substance decays in a given time interval. This concept became known as a half-life.Lemoyne College: Rutherford Half Life