What is Particle Physics--from wiki--

History

Main article: History of subatomic physics

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The Geiger–Marsden experiments observed that a small fraction of the alpha particles experienced strong deflection when being struck by the gold foil.

The idea that all matter is fundamentally composed of elementary particles dates from at least the 6th century BC.[1] In the 19th century, John Dalton, through his work on stoichiometry, concluded that each element of nature was composed of a single, unique type of particle.[2] The word atom, after the Greek word atomos meaning "indivisible", has since then denoted the smallest particle of a chemical element, but physicists later discovered that atoms are not, in fact, the fundamental particles of nature, but are conglomerates of even smaller particles, such as the electron. The early 20th century explorations of nuclear physics and quantum physics led to proofs of nuclear fission in 1939 by Lise Meitner (based on experiments by Otto Hahn), and nuclear fusion by Hans Bethe in that same year; both discoveries also led to the development of nuclear weapons. Bethe's 1947 calculation of the Lamb shift is credited with having "opened the way to the modern era of particle physics".[3]