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SINCE ancient times, many models of the atom have been developed, as the result of people attempting to account for properties of matter they had observed. The model developed by Lord Ernest Rutherford introduced many new ideas about the atom, and even though it is now quite old, many people still see the atom in the way he did. Rutherford was a former student of J.J. Thomson, but he thought there were inadequacies in …

…his experiments after he put forward his model. He discovered the proton, a positive particle in the nucleus, in 1919. Other scientists have put forward further ideas to Rutherford's model since. However, these have become increasingly complicated, and most still see the atom like Rutherford. Rutherford's model of the atom was a huge step in the history of the atom. He made vast changes to existing models, and much of our current knowledge owes to him.