Furthermore, as noted by Bohr, Moseley's law provided a reasonably complete experimental set of data that supported the (new from 1911) conception by Ernest Rutherford and Antonius van den Broek of the atom, with a positively-charged nucleus surrounded by negatively-charged electrons in which the atomic number is understood to be the exact physical number of positive charges (later discovered and called protons) in the central atomic nuclei of the elements.