Rutherford had found the nucleus of his atom. He did not yet have an arrangement for its electrons. At the Manchester meeting he spoke of “a central electric charge concentrated at a point and surrounded by a uniform spherical distribution of opposite electricity equal in amount.” That was sufficiently idealized for calculation, but it neglected the significant physical fact that the “opposite electricity” must be embodied in electrons.183 Somehow they would have to be arranged around the nucleus.
