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REVIEW (Open Access)
Contents Vol 78(8)

The value of telling it like it was. The best honours project ever?

Christopher Barnett https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8818-6908 A * , Thomas Maschmeyer A , Anthony F. Masters A and Alexander K. L. Yuen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6908-8851 A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Laboratory of Advanced Catalysis for Sustainability, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

* Correspondence to: christopher.barnett@sydney.edu.au

Handling Editor: John Wade

Australian Journal of Chemistry 78, CH25070 https://doi.org/10.1071/CH25070
Submitted: 30 April 2025  Accepted: 17 June 2025  Published online: 21 July 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC)

Abstract

We use the example of textbook treatments of the ‘Rutherford nucleus’ to illustrate the need to avoid conflating important concepts, the ‘brick in the wall’ path to scientific understanding, the value in testing one’s understanding, the utility of ‘incorrect’ models, and the importance of not ignoring seemingly inexplicable infrequent results.

Keywords: atom, chemistry education, isotopes, models, neutron, nucleus, protons, textbook, undergraduate curriculum.

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