Everyone at that time imagined the atom as a "plum pudding." That is ... to train a new generation of physicists. But his atomic model remains the best known work of a very long career.

Listen to the full series on BBC Sounds. Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden tested the plum pudding model. They aimed beams of positively-charged particles at very thin gold foil. These particles ...

Changes to the atomic model Atoms can be broken down into smaller parts. An atom is made of tiny negatively charged electrons dotted about a positively charged sphere like a plum pudding.

Everyone at that time imagined the atom as a "plum pudding." That is ... to train a new generation of physicists. But his atomic model remains the best known work of a very long career.