Chapter 18
Theory of Scattering
True laws of nature cannot be linear.
—Albert Einstein
18.1 INTRODUCTION
It may be emphasized that the most direct information about the nature of interactions in atomic and sub-atomic particles has been obtained from the study of collisions between particles. For example, it was concluded from the famous Rutherford scattering experiment of α–particles by atoms, that the positive charge and almost all mass of an atom is confined in a very small dimension (the nucleus). It was also concluded from this experiment that the interaction between α–particle and the positive charge of the atom (the nucleus) is very strong and of very short range. In fact, the systematic study of scattering process is the main source of ...
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