Transcription: The development of atomic weapons resulted from the independent research of scientists over many years. In 1896, while working with uranium, the French scientist Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity. The notion that an element could emit a constant stream of particles contradicted the belief that atoms were indivisible units. Becquerel's discovery spurred interest in atomic research all over the world, and by 1919, the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford had succeeded in penetrating a nitrogen nucleus with radium particles. Ironically, before his death in 1937, Rutherford discounted th ...
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