Ernest Rutherford, a renowned physicist, is considered the "father of nuclear physics" due to his groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of the atom's structure. He proposed the nuclear model of the atom, which revolutionized our understanding of how atoms are composed. Rutherford's experiments with alpha particles scattering off gold foil led him to discover that the atom has a dense, positively charged nucleus containing most of its mass. This pivotal discovery laid the foundation for modern nuclear physics.
