Hantaro Nagaoka

Hantaro Nagaoka (1865-1950) was a Japanese physicist who in 1904 proposed what he called the Saturnian model of the atom, in which negatively charged electrons orbit in a ring around a massive, concentrated positively charged center, drawing an explicit analogy to the rings of Saturn. The model predated by seven years the nuclear atomic model for which Ernest Rutherford is generally credited, following Rutherford's 1911 gold foil scattering experiments, though Nagaoka's own model, based on theoretical stability arguments rather than direct experimental evidence, was later shown to be incorrect in its specific mechanics and was not the direct basis for Rutherford's work. Nagaoka also carried out early research in spectroscopy, magnetostriction and seismology, and helped establish physics research and graduate training in Japan as a professor at Tokyo Imperial University. He later served as the first president of Osaka Imperial University.