The idea of the indivisible atom, held since the time of the ancient Greeks, was smashed just over
100 years ago. Ernest Rutherford and his team of scientists in the UK used scattering experiments to
discover that atoms have a very dense and extremely small central nucleus that contains more than
99.9% of the mass of an atom and is ten thousand times smaller than an atom. Then just over 50 years
ago three physicists in America: Jerome Friedman, Henry Kendall and Richard Taylor carried out
scattering experiments in California, that revealed the internal structure of nucleons—later called
quarks. This workshop, developed by the Public Engagement team at the Science and Technology
Facilities Council, takes secondary school students through these historic discoveries and the
present day scattering experiments still changing the world of science.