T IS half of the ultimate double act.

As the particle equivalent of Emie Wise or Oliver Hardy, the neutron is the particle straight-man to theproton's charged personality. Like all great double acts, the neutron.and proton spent years plugging away in anonymity until, ODe day. they were discovered, pluck,d from obscurity and thrust into centre stage. The proton and neutron can be found at the heart of ~very atom apart from hydrogen, which possesses just a lonely proton and without them matter as we know it couldn't exist. Strangely, this most fundamental of double acts didn't find fame together - it was the proton that would enjoy the first taste of international celebrity. Discovered in 1919 by a New Zealand physicist, Ernest Ruther.ford, -the proton was initially encouraged to embark on a solo career as the only particle within the atomic nucleus. Like all great celebrities, the proton was known

became clear that something didn't add up. The trouble was that an atom's atomic number didn't always tally with its atontic

mass. It was like there

were more performers on stage than the billing had advertised.

To account for this

discrepancy,

Rutherford suggested that

there might be an as yet unseen performer at work

within the atom. This

to be accompanied by a crowd of groupies - known as the electrons. The electrons were employed to keep the atom well balanced and neutral. Being negatively charged, the electrons balanced out the proton's positive nature. For a while the arrangement seemed to work, but it soon

would be another particle with about the same mass as the proton but, rather than being electrically charged, would possess no charge at all. It would be a neutral particle that wouldn't upset the balance between the positive proton and the negative electrons. The hunt for the neutron was on and the man to find it would be Rutherford's assistant, British physicist James Chadwick. But, being neutrally charged, the

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neutron was rather difficult to locate. Fortunately, discoveries in Europe would provide just the trail of bread crumbs that Chad wick needed to track the neutron down. In 1930, researchers in Gennany discovered that if
you bombard the element

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within a material and how they behave. However, if you think particle science is limited in its scope, such as what caused the Big Bang, you would be mistaken. At facilities like the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, south-east France, neutrons are used like supercharged X-rays to understand the world at the atomic level. At ILL the neutron has been used to develop magnetic soap for mopping up oil spills, targeted cancer treatments and new ways to combat viral and bacterial infections. It has even- helped make aircraft safer by finding structural defects hidden well beyond the reach of the human eye. And how does the institute, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, create the neutrons it uses? They have their very own nuclear reactor that feeds high-intensity beams of neutrons to an array of 40 instruments. These are used by some 1,200 researchers from more than 40 countries every year. llL is just one of the stages on which the neutron has performed in the 80 past years as it has risen from obscurity to be regarded as one of the particle A-listers.

Chadwick came to this conclusion. Imagine the 'atoms within the

beryllium with alpha particles (a particle with two protons and two neutrons -like a helium atom but without the electrons). a strange neutral radiation was emitted

paraffin are a bunch of snooker balls - if you blow on the snooker balls (our imaginary gamma radiation), you might succeed in moving a few of the balls but not much else. If you fire the cue ball at the snooker balls instead, you will see that some are knocked out of the pack just like the protons

that could pene~ate ' matter. Those who discovered

this phenomenon thought it was just commOD-Ofgarden gamma radiation, but Chadwick wasn't convinced and believed that it was actually a particle. His initial attempts to track down the particle in a cloud chamber (the usual method of tracing a particle) proved fruitless. Then, in France. researchers discovered that if a lump of paraffin wa.x was placed in the path of the radiation, protons were knocked out. To Chad wick, this was proof that a particle was at play. Anyone who has ever played (or watched)
snooker can understand why

knocked from the paraffin atoms. Chad wick replicated the paraffin experiment and he not only confinned that the neutral radiation was indeed a particle but also, by tracing the paths and energies of the dislodged protons, was able to figure out that the particle must have about the same mass as the protons it had dislodged. At last, the neutron had been discovered and, as well as sharing the limelight with the proton, it soon went on to become a star in

its own right. The discovery of the neutron made the nuclear age possible. Its ability to penetrate an atom's nucleus meant that it could be used to tear atoms apart and release the energy within, which is. known as nuclear fission. Without Chadwick's discovery, there would have been no nuClear bomb (OK, so it's not all good) and there would have been no nuclear power stations (not really selling this, are we?!). .

Aside from helping to blow up islands in the Pacific, the neutron also has more benign talents and is an extremely useful tool for probing the atomic structure of matter. Its ability to penetrate matter means it can tell us exactly where the atoms and molecules are

FoUow @GiUiCosm for a (asm-shaped window to the twitterverse