Question

Who discovered neutron experimentally?

Answer 1

A physicist by the name of James Chadwick discovered neutrons experimentally using beryllium atoms in 1932.

1. Although works on the discovery of neutrons are dated as back as 1920, the first proper discovery was made in 1932 only.
2. Chadwick bombarded the beryllium sheet with alpha particles and that led to the emission of a beam of uncharged particles.
3. This was then made incident on a sheet of paraffin wax which further caused the ejection of protons.
4. These protons ejected from the wax were then observed in an ionization chamber,
5. The observations made from the ionization chamber led to the discovery of those uncharged particles as neutrons.