text: Tritium was first detected in 1934 by Ernest Rutherford, Mark Oliphant and Paul Harteck after bombarding deuterium with deuterons (deuterium nuclei). Deuterium is another isotope of hydrogen, which occurs naturally with an abundance of 0.015%. Their experiment could not isolate tritium, which was first accomplished in 1939 by Luis Alvarez and Robert Cornog, who also realized tritium's radioactivity. Willard Libby recognized in 1954 that tritium could be used for radiometric dating of water and wine.