Rediscovery of the Elements Moseley and Atomic Numbers ing the Industrial Revolution which brought wealth and prosperity to the community. By the mid-1800s, Manchester was the second largest III city in England and gained a reputation as a center of invention and technological progress. In 1781 a prestigious scientific institution was founded— the Literary and Philosophical Society (commonly known as the “Lit. and Phil.”).1 In this society John Dalton (1766–1844),2a who arrived in Manchester in 1793, formulated his atomic theory at the turn of the century.3 At the very same platform4 where Dalton proposed his idea of atoms and James L. Marshall, Beta Eta 1971, and atomic masses (Figures 1, 2), Ernest Rutherford Virginia R. Marshall, Beta Eta 2003, one century later first proposed the nuclear Department of Chemistry, University of atom, a dense positive core surrounded by elec- 5 North Texas, Denton, TX 76203-5070, trons. Ernest Rutherford had arrived in 1907 from
[email protected] McGill University, Montreal, Canada.2d At the University of Manchester (then named the Introduction. Manchester in northwest Victoria University of Manchester) he assem- England was founded as a Roman fort in 79 bled a powerful team of gifted individuals Figure 1. This was the Literary and Philosophical A.D. After the Roman departure it evolved into including an Oxford graduate named Henry building at 36 George Street in Manchester built in a typical Medieval village and after a millenni- Gwyn-Jeffreys Moseley (1887–1915), who 1799 which served the scientific community for 140 um matured into a manufacturing giant.