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{{Short description|New Zealand physicist (1871–1937)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2012}}
{{redirect-distinguish|Lord Rutherford|Lord Rutherfurd|Andrew Rutherford, 1st Earl of Teviot}}
{{Refimprove|date=November 2011}}
{{pp-move-indef}} {{pp-move}}
{{pp-semi-indef}}
{{Use New Zealand English|date=August 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix = ]
| name = The Lord Rutherford of Nelson
| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OM|FRS|HFRSE}}
| image = Sir Ernest Rutherford LCCN2014716719 - restoration1.jpg
| caption = Rutherford, {{circa|1920s}}
| order = 44th
| office = President of the Royal Society
| term_start = 1925
| term_end = 1930
| predecessor = ]
| successor = ]
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1871|8|30}}
| birth_place = ], ], ]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1937|10|19|1871|8|30}}
| death_place = ], England
| resting_place = ], ]
{{Infobox scientist {{Infobox scientist
|name = The Lord Rutherford of Nelson | embed = yes
| alma_mater = ]<br>]
|image = Ernest Rutherford cropped.jpg
| known_for = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|''See list''}}|{{ubl|]|]|
|image_size = 220px
]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|Coining the term '']''}}}}
|caption = Lord Rutherford of Nelson
| spouse = {{marriage|Mary Georgina Newton|1900|<!-- 1937, ''his death'' -->}}
|birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1871|8|30}}
| children = 1 <!-- daughter (Eileen Mary Rutherford) -->
|birth_place = ], New Zealand
| relatives = ] (son-in-law)
|death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1937|10|19|1871|8|30}}
| awards = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|''See list''}}|{{ubl|]|] (1904, 1920)|] (1904)|] (1908)|] (1910)|] (1910)|] (1911)|] (1913)|] (1916)|] (1919)|] (1922)|] (1924)|] (1925)|] (1928)|] (1930)| ] (1936)|] (1936)}}}}
|death_place = ], England
| fields = ]<br>]
|residence = New Zealand, UK, Canada
| work_institutions = {{ubl|]|]|University of Cambridge}}
|citizenship = New Zealand, United Kingdom
|nationality = <!-- He had both NZ and UK citizenship --> | doctoral_advisor = <!--There was no PhD at Cambridge until 1919-->
| academic_advisors = {{plainlist|
|fields = ] and ]
* ]
|workplaces = ]<br>]
* ]<ref name="aps">
|alma_mater = ]<br>]
{{Cite web|url=https://www.aps.org/programs/outreach/history/historicsites/rutherfordsoddy.cfm |title=Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201041955/https://www.aps.org/programs/outreach/history/historicsites/rutherfordsoddy.cfm |archive-date=1 December 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
|doctoral_advisor = <!--There was no PhD at Cambridge until 1919-->
}}
|academic_advisors = ]<br>]
| doctoral_students = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|''See list''}}|{{ubl|]<ref name=UofPunjab>{{Cite web |title=University of the Punjab - Science |url=http://pu.edu.pk/home/department/55/Department-of-Physics |access-date=2023-09-15 |website=pu.edu.pk |quote="The expedition included Professor James Martin Benade (Professor of Physics at Forman Christian College Lahore) and Dr. Nazir Ahmad (a PhD student of Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge who later on became the First Chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 1956). " |archive-date=2 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231002053440/http://pu.edu.pk/home/department/55/Department-of-Physics |url-status=live }}</ref>|]|]|]|]|]<ref name="comsats">{{Cite web |editor-last1=Hameed |editor-first1=A. Khan |editor-last2=Qurashi |editor-first2=M. M. |editor-last3=Hussain |editor-first3=E. T. |editor-last4=Hayee |editor-first4=M. I. |title=Physics in Developing Countries – Past, Present & Future |url=https://comsats.org/Publications/Books_SnT_Series/08.%20Physics%20in%20Developing%20Countries%20-%20Past,%20Present%20and%20Future%20(April%202006).pdf |year=2006 |series=COMSATS Series of Publications on Science and Technology |website=] |access-date=2 October 2023 |archive-date=22 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230922031259/http://www.comsats.org/Publications/Books_SnT_Series/08.%20Physics%20in%20Developing%20Countries%20-%20Past,%20Present%20and%20Future%20(April%202006).pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="chair">{{Cite web |last=((Government College University, Lahore (GCU))) |author-link=Government College University, Lahore |title=Dr. Rafi Muhammad Chaudhri Chair in Physics – About the Chair |url=http://www.gcu.edu.pk/RafiCh_Chair.htm |date=4 September 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316200831/http://www.gcu.edu.pk/RafiCh_Chair.htm |archive-date=16 March 2016 |url-status=dead |work=Chief Librarian GC University Library, Lahore |publisher=GC University | access-date=2 October 2023}}</ref>|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grodzins |first1=Lee |title=Obituaries: Zhang Wen-Yu |journal=Physics Today |date=February 1994 |volume=47 |issue=2 |page=116 |doi=10.1063/1.2808417 |quote=Zhang studied under Ernest Rutherford in the mid-1930s, receiving his degree from Cambridge University in 1938.|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author1=Zhang Wenyu ({{lang|zh|张文裕}}) |url=https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2047688 |script-title=zh:高能实验物理学家张文裕:回忆导师卢瑟福生命中的最后两年 |work=thepaper.com |date=28 March 2018 |access-date=12 August 2021 |language=zh |archive-date=12 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812083603/https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2047688 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}}}
|doctoral_students = ]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br> ]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>
|notable_students = ]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br> | notable_students = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|''See list''}}|{{ubl|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|]|] <!-- verified https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-020-1037-4 and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/N-Panchapakesan/publication/276326833_Professor_DS_Kothari_and_the_University_of_Delhi/links/5ae4232e458515760abe8c98/Professor-DS-Kothari-and-the-University-of-Delhi.pdf -->|]|]|]|]|]|]|]}}}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|known_for = ]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>]<br>{{nowrap|]}}
| embed = yes
|author_abbrev_bot =
| order2 = 4th
|author_abbrev_zoo =
|influences = | office2 = Cavendish Professor of Physics
| term_start2 = 1919
|influenced = ]<br>]<br>]
| term_end2 = 1937
|awards = ] (1905)<br>] (1908) <br> ] (1910) <br> ] (1913)<br>] (1922)<br>] (1924)
| predecessor2 = J. J. Thomson
|signature = ernest_rutherford_sig.jpg
|footnotes = | successor2 = ]
}} }}
| signature = Ernest-Rutherford-signature.svg
}}
}}
'''Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson''', (30 August 1871&nbsp;– 19 October 1937), was a New Zealand ] who was a pioneering researcher in both ] and ]. He has been described as "the father of nuclear physics",<ref name=Father/> and "the greatest ] since ]".<ref name="eb">{{cite web |last1=Badash |first1=Lawrence |title=Ernest Rutherford {{!}} Accomplishments, Atomic Theory, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-Rutherford |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=23 June 2023 |language=en |archive-date=26 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220926002932/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-Rutherford |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1908, he was awarded the ] "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances." He was the first ]n Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in ].


Rutherford's discoveries include the concept of radioactive ], the radioactive element ], and the differentiation and naming of ] and ]. Together with ], Rutherford is credited with proving that alpha radiation is composed of ] nuclei.<ref name=rutherford.org.nz>{{cite web|last=Campbell|first=John|title=Rutherford – A Brief Biography|url=http://www.rutherford.org.nz/biography.htm|website=Rutherford.org.nz|access-date=4 March 2013|archive-date=12 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200512125601/https://www.rutherford.org.nz/biography.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1080/14786440808636511| title = Spectrum of the radium emanation| journal = Philosophical Magazine| series = Series 6| volume = 16| issue = 92| pages = 313| year = 1908| last1 = Rutherford| first1 = E.| last2 = Royds| first2 = T.| url = https://zenodo.org/record/1430840| access-date = 28 June 2019| archive-date = 23 December 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191223010722/https://zenodo.org/record/1430840| url-status = live}}</ref> In 1911, he theorized that atoms have their charge concentrated in a very small ].<ref>{{cite book |title = Theoretical concepts in physics: an alternative view of theoretical reasoning in physics |last = Longair |first = M. S. |publisher = Cambridge University Press |year = 2003 |isbn = 978-0-521-52878-8 |pages = 377–378 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=bA9Lp2GH6OEC&pg=PA377 |access-date = 11 May 2020 |archive-date = 30 October 2023 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20231030224745/https://books.google.com/books?id=bA9Lp2GH6OEC&pg=PA377#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status = live }}</ref> He arrived at this theory through his discovery and interpretation of ] during the ] performed by ] and ]. In 1912 he invited ] to join his lab, leading to the ] of the ]. In 1917, he performed the first artificially induced ] by conducting experiments in which nitrogen nuclei were bombarded with alpha particles. These experiments led him to discover the emission of a subatomic particle that he initially called the "hydrogen atom", but later (more precisely) renamed the ].<ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1080/14786440608635919|title = Collision of α particles with light atoms. IV. An anomalous effect in nitrogen|journal = The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science|series = Series 6|volume = 37|issue = 222|pages = 581–587|year = 1919|last1 = Rutherford|first1 = E.|url = https://zenodo.org/record/1430800|access-date = 2 November 2019|archive-date = 2 November 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191102172157/https://zenodo.org/record/1430800|url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1098/rspa.1920.0040|title = Bakerian Lecture. Nuclear Constitution of Atoms|journal = Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences|volume = 97|issue = 686|pages = 374–400|year = 1920|last1 = Rutherford|first1 = E.|bibcode = 1920RSPSA..97..374R|doi-access = free}}</ref> He is also credited with developing the ] alongside ]. His other achievements include advancing the fields of ] communications and ] technology.
'''Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson''' ], ]<ref>{{cite doi|10.1098/rsbm.1938.0025}}</ref> (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand-born British ] and ] who became known as the father of ].<ref name="eb">
{{cite web
|url = http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/514229/Ernest-Rutherford-Baron-Rutherford-of-Nelson-of-Cambridge
|title = Ernest Rutherford: British-New Zealand physicist
|work = Encyclopædia Britannica
}}</ref> He is considered the greatest experimentalist since ] (1791–1867).<ref name="eb" />


Rutherford became Director of the ] at the ] in 1919. Under his leadership, the ] was discovered by ] in 1932. In the same year, the first controlled experiment to split the nucleus was performed by ] and ], working under his direction. In honour of his scientific advancements, Rutherford was recognised as a ] of the United Kingdom. After his death in 1937, he was buried in ] near ] and ]. The chemical element ] (<sub>104</sub>Rf) was named after him in 1997.
In early work he discovered the concept of radioactive ], proved that radioactivity involved the transmutation of one chemical element to another, and also differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation,<ref>{{cite web|title=The Discovery of Radioactivity|url=http://www.lbl.gov/abc/wallchart/chapters/03/4.html}}</ref> proving that the former was essentially ] ions. This work was done at ] in Canada. It is the basis for the ] he was awarded in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".<ref>. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on 2011-01-26.</ref>


== Early life and education ==
Rutherford performed his most famous work after he had moved to the ] in the UK in 1907 and was already a Nobel laureate. In 1911, although he could not prove that it was positive or negative; <ref name=charge>
Ernest Rutherford was born on 30 August 1871 in ], a town near ], New Zealand.<ref name=McLintock/> He was the fourth of twelve children of James Rutherford, an immigrant farmer and mechanic from ], Scotland, and his wife Martha Thompson, a schoolteacher from ], England.<ref name=McLintock>{{cite encyclopedia|author=A.H. McLintock|encyclopedia=An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand|title=Rutherford, Sir Ernest (Baron Rutherford of Nelson, O.M., F.R.S.)|edition=1966|date=18 September 2007|url=http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/rutherford-sir-ernest/1|publisher=Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand|isbn=978-0-478-18451-8|access-date=2 April 2008|archive-date=3 December 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203225115/http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/rutherford-sir-ernest/1|url-status=live|url-access=<!--WP:URLACCESS-->}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vNW1wg9npgC&pg=PA12|page=12|author=J.L. Heilbron|title=Ernest Rutherford And the Explosion of Atoms|date=12 June 2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-512378-6|access-date=22 February 2016|archive-date=29 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230829161018/https://books.google.com/books?id=_vNW1wg9npgC&pg=PA12|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Rutherford's birth certificate was mistakenly written as 'Earnest'. He was known by his family as Ern.<ref name=McLintock/><ref name=":0">{{DNZB|last=Campbell|first=John|title=Rutherford, Ernest 1871–1937|id=3R37|access-date=4 April 2011}}</ref>
{{cite book
|title = The scattering of alpha and beta particles by matter and the structure of the atom
|author = Ernest Rutherford
|publisher = Taylor & Francis
|year = 1911
|page = 688
|url = http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/rutherford/rutherford688.html
}}</ref>
he theorized that atoms have their charge concentrated in a very small ],<ref>
{{cite book
|title = Theoretical concepts in physics: an alternative view of theoretical reasoning in physics
|author = M. S. Longair
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2003
|isbn = 978-0-521-52878-8
|pages = 377–378
|url = http://books.google.com/?id=bA9Lp2GH6OEC&pg=PA377&dq=rutherford+positive+charge+concentrated+nucleus&q=rutherford%20positive%20charge%20concentrated%20nucleus
}}</ref>
and thereby pioneered the ] of the ], through his discovery and interpretation of ] in his ]. He is widely credited with first "splitting the atom" in 1917 in a ] between nitrogen and alpha particles, in which he also discovered (and named) the ].<ref>. Nzhistory.net.nz (1437-10-19). Retrieved on 2011-01-26.</ref> This led to the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner, performed by two students working under his direction, ] and ], in 1432. After his death in 1437, he was honoured by being interred with the greatest scientists of the United Kingdom, near ]'s tomb in ]. The chemical element ] (element 104) was named after him in 1897.


When Rutherford was five he moved to Foxhill, New Zealand, and attended Foxhill School. At age 11 in 1883, the Rutherford family moved to ], a town in the ]. The move was made to be closer to the flax mill Rutherford's father developed.<ref name=":0" /> Ernest studied at ].<ref>{{Cite news |date=7 October 1886 |title=Local and General News. |volume=22 |page=2 |work=] |issue=186 |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18861007.2.8? |access-date=October 1, 2023 |via=Papers Past |archive-date=8 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230808010845/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18861007.2.8 |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Biography==
===Early life and education===
Ernest Rutherford was the son of James Rutherford, a farmer, and his wife Martha Thompson, originally from ], Essex, England.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|first=A.H.|last=McLintock|encyclopedia=An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand|title=Rutherford, Sir Ernest (Baron Rutherford of Nelson, O.M., F.R.S.)|edition=1966|date=18 September 2007|url=http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/rutherford-sir-ernest/1|publisher=Te Ara – The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand| isbn=978-0-478-18451-8|accessdate=2008-04-02}}</ref> James had emigrated to New Zealand from ], Scotland, "to raise a little flax and a lot of children". Ernest was born at Spring Grove (now ]), near ], New Zealand. His first name was mistakenly spelled ''Earnest'' when his birth was registered.<ref>{{DNZB|last=Campbell|first=John|title=Rutherford, Ernest 1871–1937|id=3R37|accessdate=4 April 2011}}</ref>


In 1887, on his second attempt, he won a scholarship to study at ].<ref name=":0" /> On his first examination attempt, he received 75 out of 130 marks for geography, 76 out of 130 for history, 101 out of 140 for English, and 200 out of 200 for arithmetic, totalling 452 out of 600 marks.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Results of Nelson Scholarships Examinations for December 1885. |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TC18860102.2.30 |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz |archive-date=8 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230808010350/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TC18860102.2.30 |url-status=live }}</ref> With these marks, he had the highest of anyone from Nelson.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Marlborough Express. Published Every Evening. Monday, December 28, 1885. Local and General News. |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18851228.2.5 |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz |archive-date=8 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230808010547/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18851228.2.5 |url-status=live }}</ref> When he was awarded the scholarship, he had received 580 out of 600 possible marks.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Marlborough Express. Published Every Evening Wednesday, January 5, 1887. Local and General News. |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18870105.2.6 |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz |archive-date=8 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230808011211/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18870105.2.6 |url-status=live }}</ref> After being awarded the scholarship, Havelock School presented him with a five-volume set of books titled ''The Peoples of the World''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Papers Past {{!}} Newspapers {{!}} Marlborough Express {{!}} 25 January 1887 {{!}} Local and General News. |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18870125.2.6 |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz |archive-date=8 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230808011630/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18870125.2.6 |url-status=live }}</ref> He studied at Nelson College between 1887 and 1889, and was head boy in 1889. He also played in the school's rugby team.<ref name=":0" /> He was offered a cadetship in government service, but he declined as he still had 15 months of college remaining.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Papers Past {{!}} Newspapers {{!}} Marlborough Express {{!}} 4 October 1887 {{!}} Marlborough Express. Published Every Evening.... |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18871004.2.7 |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz |archive-date=8 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230808011952/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX18871004.2.7 |url-status=live }}</ref>
He studied at ] and then ] and won a ] to study at ], ] where he was president of the ], among other things. After gaining his BA, ] and BSc, and doing two years of research at the forefront of electrical technology, in 1895 Rutherford travelled to England for postgraduate study at the ], ] (1895–1898),<ref>{{Venn|id=RTRT895E|name=Rutherford, Ernest}}</ref> and he briefly held the world record for the distance over which electromagnetic waves could be detected.


In 1889, after his second attempt, he won a ] to study at ], ], between 1890 and 1894. He participated in its ] and the Science Society.<ref name=":0" /> At Canterbury, he was awarded a complex ] in Latin, English, and Maths in 1892, a ] in Mathematics and Physical Science in 1893, and a ] in Chemistry and Geology in 1894.<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography">{{cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford Biographical |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1908/rutherford/biographical/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230603075847/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1908/rutherford/biographical/ |archive-date=3 June 2023 |url-status=live |website=The Nobel Prize |publisher=Nobel Prize Outreach AB |access-date=5 October 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Famous Canterbury graduate Ernest Rutherford turns 150 |url=https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2021/famous-canterbury-graduate-ernest-rutherford-turns-150.html |website=The University of Canterbury |access-date=3 July 2023 |language=en-nz |date=27 August 2021 |archive-date=3 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230703222040/https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2021/famous-canterbury-graduate-ernest-rutherford-turns-150.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
"Cambridge’s rules did not allow Rutherford to advance because of his youth"<ref></ref> so in 1898 Rutherford was appointed to succeed ] in the ] at ] in ], Canada, where he did the work that gained him the ] in 1908. In 1900 he gained a ] from the University of New Zealand. Also in 1900 he married Mary Georgina Newton (1876–1945); they had one daughter, Eileen Mary (1901–1930), who married ]. In 1907 Rutherford moved to Britain to take the ] of physics at the ].


Thereafter, he invented a new form of radio receiver, and in 1895 Rutherford was awarded an ] from the ],<ref>1851 Royal Commission Archives</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Papers Past {{!}} Newspapers {{!}} Ashburton Guardian {{!}} 13 July 1895 {{!}} European and Other Foreign Items |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG18950713.2.9 |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz |archive-date=8 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230808013431/https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG18950713.2.9 |url-status=live }}</ref> to travel to England for postgraduate study at the ], ].<ref name="Venn">{{acad|id=RTRT895E|name=Rutherford, Ernest}}</ref> In 1897, he was awarded a BA Research Degree and the Coutts-Trotter Studentship from ].<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography"/>
===Later years and honours===
He was ] in 1914. In 1916 he was awarded the ]. In 1919 he returned to the Cavendish as Director. Under him, Nobel Prizes were awarded to ] for discovering the neutron (in 1932), ] and ] for an experiment which was to be known as ''splitting the atom'' using a ], and ] for demonstrating the existence of the ]. He was admitted to the ] in 1925 and raised to the peerage as '''Baron Rutherford of Nelson''', in 1931,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33683 |date=23 January 1931 |startpage=533}}</ref> a title that became extinct upon his unexpected death in 1937.


== Scientific career ==
For some time beforehand, Rutherford had a small hernia, which he had neglected to have fixed, and it became strangulated, causing him to be violently ill. Despite an emergency operation in London, he died four days afterwards of what physicians termed "intestinal paralysis." He was given the high honor of burial in ], near ] and other illustrious British scientists.<ref> Accessed 3 January 2012.</ref>
]


When Rutherford began his studies at Cambridge, he was among the first 'aliens' (those without a Cambridge degree) allowed to do research at the university, and was additionally honoured to study under ].<ref name="aps" />
==Scientific research==
During the investigation of ] he coined the terms ] and ] in 1899 to describe the two distinct types of ] emitted by ] and ]. These rays were differentiated on the basis of penetrating power.
From 1900 to 1903 he was joined at McGill by the young ] (], 1921) and they collaborated on research into the ] of ]. Rutherford and Soddy demonstrated that ] was often the spontaneous disintegration of ]s into other types of atoms (one element spontaneously being changed to another). This would suggest that radioactivity was a nuclear phenomenon, but the nucleus of the atom was not then known (Rutherford himself would later deduce it in 1911).


With Thomson's encouragement, Rutherford detected radio waves at {{convert|0.5|mi|m}}, and briefly held the world record for the distance over which electromagnetic waves could be detected, although when he presented his results at the ] meeting in 1896, he discovered he had been outdone by ], whose radio waves had sent a message across nearly {{convert|10|mi|km}}.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Holmes |first1=Jonathan |title=Marconi's first radio broadcast made 125 years ago |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-61327062 |access-date=16 June 2023 |work=BBC News |date=13 May 2022 |archive-date=5 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605224315/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-61327062 |url-status=live }}</ref>
While studying radioactivity, he noticed that a sample of radioactive material invariably took the same amount of time for half the sample to decay—its "]"—and created a practical application using this constant rate of decay as a ], which could then be used to help determine the age of the ], which turned out to be much older than most of the scientists at the time believed.


=== Work with radioactivity ===
In 1903, Rutherford considered a type of radiation discovered (but not named) by French chemist ] in 1900, as an emission from ], and realised that this observation must represent something different from his own ] and ], due to its very much greater penetrating power. Rutherford therefore gave this third type of radiation the name of ], which was retained by the scientific community. All three of Rutherford's terms are in standard use today (other types of ] have since been discovered, but Rutherford's three types are among the most common).
Again under Thomson's leadership, Rutherford worked on the conductive effects of X-rays on gases, which led to the discovery of the ], the results first presented by Thomson in 1897.<ref name=Hindu/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Buchwald |first1=Jed Z. |last2=Warwick |first2=Andrew |title=Histories of the electron: the birth of microphysics |date=30 January 2004 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. |isbn=0262524244 |pages=21–30 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1yqqhlIdCOoC&pg=PA21 |access-date=27 June 2023 |archive-date=29 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230829163251/https://books.google.com/books?id=1yqqhlIdCOoC&pg=PA21 |url-status=live }}</ref> Hearing of ]'s experience with ], Rutherford started to explore its ], discovering two types that differed from X-rays in their penetrating power. Continuing his research in Canada, in 1899 he coined the terms "]" and "]" to describe these two distinct types of ].<ref name=abg>{{Cite journal|last=Trenn|first=Thaddeus J.|date=1976|title=Rutherford on the Alpha-Beta-Gamma Classification of Radioactive Rays|journal=Isis|volume=67|issue=1|pages=61–75|jstor=231134|doi=10.1086/351545|s2cid=145281124}}</ref>


In 1898, Rutherford was accepted to the ] position at ] in Montreal, Canada, on Thomson's recommendation.<ref>{{cite book| first=Robin| last=McKown| authorlink=Robin McKown|title=Giant of the Atom, Ernest Rutherford| url=https://archive.org/details/giantofatomernes00mcko|url-access=registration|year=1962|publisher=Julian Messner Inc, New York|page=}}</ref> From 1900 to 1903, he was joined at McGill by the young chemist ] (], 1921) for whom he set the problem of identifying the ] emitted by the radioactive element ], a substance which was itself radioactive and would coat other substances. Once he had eliminated all the normal chemical reactions, Soddy suggested that it must be one of the inert gases, which they named ]. This substance was later found to be ], an isotope of radon.<ref name="Kragh">{{Cite arXiv|last=Kragh|first=Helge|date=5 February 2012|title=Rutherford, Radioactivity, and the Atomic Nucleus|eprint=1202.0954|class=physics.hist-ph}}</ref><ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography"/> They also found another substance they called Thorium X, later identified as ], and continued to find traces of helium. They also worked with samples of "Uranium X" (]), from ], and ], from ]. Rutherford further investigated thoron in conjunction with ] and found that a sample of radioactive material of any size invariably took the same amount of time for half the sample to decay (in this case, 11{{frac|1|2}} minutes), a phenomenon for which he coined the term "]".<ref name="Kragh"/> Rutherford and Soddy published their paper "Law of Radioactive Change" to account for all their experiments. Until then, atoms were assumed to be the indestructible basis of all matter; and although Curie had suggested that radioactivity was an atomic phenomenon, the idea of the atoms of radioactive substances breaking up was a radically new idea. Rutherford and Soddy demonstrated that radioactivity involved the spontaneous disintegration of atoms into other, as yet, unidentified matter.<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography"/>
In Manchester, he continued to work with alpha radiation. In conjunction with ], he developed zinc sulfide ]s and ionisation chambers to count alphas. By dividing the total charge they produced by the number counted, Rutherford decided that the charge on the alpha was two. In late 1907, Ernest Rutherford and ] allowed alphas to penetrate a very thin window into an evacuated tube. As they ], the spectrum obtained from it changed, as the alphas accumulated in the tube. Eventually, the clear spectrum of helium gas appeared, proving that alphas were at least ionised helium atoms, and probably helium nuclei.


In 1903, Rutherford considered a type of radiation, discovered (but not named) by French chemist ] in 1900, as an emission from ], and realised that this observation must represent something different from his own alpha and beta rays, due to its very much greater penetrating power. Rutherford therefore gave this third type of radiation the name of ].<ref name=abg/> All three of Rutherford's terms are in standard use today – other types of ] have since been discovered, but Rutherford's three types are among the most common. In 1904, Rutherford suggested that radioactivity provides a source of energy sufficient to explain the existence of the Sun for the many millions of years required for the slow biological evolution on Earth proposed by biologists such as ]. The physicist ] earlier for a much younger Earth, based on the insufficiency of known energy sources, but Rutherford pointed out, at a lecture attended by Kelvin, that radioactivity could solve this problem.<ref name="England et al 2007">{{cite journal |author1=England, P. |author2=Molnar, P. |author3=Righter, F. | title=John Perry's neglected critique of Kelvin's age for the Earth: A missed opportunity in geodynamics |journal=GSA Today |date=January 2007 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=4–9 |doi=10.1130/GSAT01701A.1 |bibcode=2007GSAT...17R...4E |doi-access= free}}</ref> Later that year, he was elected as a member to the ],<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1904&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=28 June 2021|website=search.amphilsoc.org|archive-date=28 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210628190035/https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1904&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|url-status=live}}</ref> and in 1907 he returned to Britain to take the ] of physics at the ].<ref>{{cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford: Heritage Heroes at The University of Manchester |url=https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/history-heritage/history/heroes/ernest-rutherford/ |website=The University of Manchester |access-date=27 June 2023 |language=en |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627004723/https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/history-heritage/history/heroes/ernest-rutherford/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
===Rutherford and the Gold Foil Experiment===
]s passing through the ] of the atom undisturbed.<br>
''Bottom:'' Observed results: a small portion of the particles were deflected, indicating ]. Note that the image is not to scale; in reality the nucleus is vastly smaller than the electron shell.]]
Rutherford remains the only science Nobel Prize winner to have performed his most famous work ''after'' receiving the prize.<ref>cite: http://www.encyclopediabritanica.com/nucleus (atom)</ref> Along with ] and ] in 1909, he carried out the ], which demonstrated the nuclear nature of atoms. Rutherford was inspired to ask Geiger and Marsden in this experiment to look for ] with very high deflection angles, of a type not expected from any theory of matter at that time. Such deflections, though rare, were found, and proved to be a smooth but high-order function of the deflection angle. It was Rutherford's interpretation of this data that led him to formulate the ] of the atom in 1911 – that a very small ]d <ref name=charge /> ], containing much of the atom's mass, was ]ed by low-mass ].


In Manchester, Rutherford continued his work with alpha radiation. In conjunction with ], he developed zinc sulfide ] screens and ]s to count alpha particles. By dividing the total charge accumulated on the screen by the number counted, Rutherford determined that the charge on the alpha particle was two.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1908-08-27 |title=The charge and nature of the α-particle |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character |language=en |volume=81 |issue=546 |pages=162–173 |doi=10.1098/rspa.1908.0066 |bibcode=1908RSPSA..81..162R |issn=0950-1207 |last1=Rutherford |first1=E. |last2=Geiger |first2=Hans |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=PaisInwardBound>{{Cite book |last=Pais |first=Abraham |title=Inward bound: of matter and forces in the physical world |date=2002 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-851997-3 |edition=Reprint |location=Oxford}}</ref>{{rp|61}} In late 1907, Ernest Rutherford and ] allowed alphas to penetrate a very thin window into an evacuated tube. As they ], the spectrum obtained from it changed, as the alphas accumulated in the tube. Eventually, the clear spectrum of helium gas appeared, proving that alphas were at least ionised helium atoms, and probably helium nuclei.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rutherford |first1=E. |last2=Royds |first2=T. |title=XXI. The nature of the α particle from radioactive substances |journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science |date=February 1909 |volume=17 |issue=98 |pages=281–286 |doi=10.1080/14786440208636599 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1430648 |access-date=11 August 2023 |archive-date=7 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507040356/https://zenodo.org/record/1430648 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Before leaving Manchester in 1919 to take over the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, Rutherford became, in 1917, the first person to deliberately transmute one ] into another. In this experiment, he had discovered peculiar radiations when alphas were projected into air, and narrowed the effect down to the nitrogen, not the oxygen in the air. Using pure nitrogen, Rutherford used alpha radiation to convert ] into ] through the ] <sup>14</sup>N + α → <sup>17</sup>O + proton. The proton was not then known. In the products of this reaction Rutherford simply identified hydrogen nuclei, by their similarity to the particle radiation from earlier experiments in which he had bombarded hydrogen gas with alpha particles to knock hydrogen nuclei out of hydrogen atoms. This result showed Rutherford that hydrogen nuclei were a part of nitrogen nuclei (and by inference, probably other nuclei as well). Such a construction had been suspected for many years on the basis of atomic weights which were whole numbers of that of hydrogen; see ]. Hydrogen was known to be the lightest element, and its nuclei presumably the lightest nuclei. Now, because of all these considerations, Rutherford decided that a hydrogen nucleus was possibly a fundamental building block of all nuclei, and also possibly a new fundamental particle as well, since nothing was known from the nucleus that was lighter. Thus, Rutherford postulated hydrogen nuclei to be a new particle in 1920, which he dubbed the '']''.
In 1910 Rutherford, with Geiger and mathematician ] published<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rutherford |first1=E. |last2=Geiger |first2=H. |last3=Bateman |first3=H. |title=LXXVI. The probability variations in the distribution of α particles |journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science |date=October 1910 |volume=20 |issue=118 |pages=698–707 |doi=10.1080/14786441008636955 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1430880 |access-date=11 August 2023 |archive-date=29 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230829170123/https://zenodo.org/record/1430880 |url-status=live }}</ref>
their classic paper<ref>Bulmer, M. G. (1979). Principles of Statistics. United Kingdom: Dover Publications.</ref>{{rp|94}} describing the first analysis of the distribution in time of radioactive emission, a distribution now called the ].


Ernest Rutherford was awarded the ] "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".<ref>{{cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1908/summary/ |website=The Nobel Prize |publisher=The Nobel Foundation |access-date=2 April 2020 |archive-date=8 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180708045209/https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1908/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography" />
In 1921, while working with ] (who postulated that electrons moved in specific orbits), Rutherford theorized about the existence of ]s, which could somehow compensate for the repelling effect of the positive charges of ]s by causing an attractive ] and thus keep the nuclei from flying apart from the repulsion between protons. The only alternative to neutrons was the existence of "nuclear electrons" which would counteract some of the proton charges in the nucleus, since by then it was known that nuclei had about twice the mass that could be accounted for if they were simply assembled from hydrogen nuclei (protons). But how these nuclear electrons could be trapped in the nucleus, was a mystery.


=== Model of the atom ===
Rutherford's theory of ]s was proved in 1932 by his associate ], who recognized neutrons immediately when they were produced by other scientists and later himself, in bombarding beryllium with alpha particles. In 1935, Chadwick was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.
{{See also|Rutherford–Bohr model| Rutherford scattering}}
]s passing through the ] of the atom undisturbed.<br />
''Bottom:'' Observed results: a small portion of the particles were deflected, indicating ]. Diagram is not to scale; in reality the nucleus is vastly smaller than the electron shell.]]


Rutherford continued to make ground-breaking discoveries long after receiving the Nobel prize in 1908.<ref name=PaisInwardBound/>{{rp|63|q=...Rutherford, who rose to his greatest heights after 1908, most notably because of his discovery of the atomic nucleus}} Under his direction in 1909, ] and ] performed the ], which demonstrated the nuclear nature of atoms by measuring the deflection of ] passing through a thin gold foil.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Pestka |first1=Jessica |title=About Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment |url=https://sciencing.com/rutherfords-gold-foil-experiment-4569065.html |website=Sciencing |access-date=27 June 2023 |language=en |date=25 April 2017 |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627004502/https://sciencing.com/rutherfords-gold-foil-experiment-4569065.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Rutherford was inspired to ask Geiger and Marsden in this experiment to look for alpha particles with very high deflection angles, which was not expected according to any theory of matter at that time.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dragovich |first1=Branko |title=Ernest Rutherford and the Discovery of the Atomic Nucleus |publisher=Institute of Physics |location=Belgrade |url=http://bsw2011.seenet-mtp.info/pub/bss2011-DragovichB-abs.pdf |access-date=27 June 2023 |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627004502/http://bsw2011.seenet-mtp.info/pub/bss2011-DragovichB-abs.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Davidson |first1=Michael W. |title=Pioneers in Optics: Johann Wilhelm Ritter and Ernest Rutherford |journal=Microscopy Today |date=March 2014 |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=48–51 |doi=10.1017/S1551929514000029 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E8B7456A024C6ED07D4E891F540C8EE2/S1551929514000029a.pdf/pioneers-in-optics-johann-wilhelm-ritter-and-ernest-rutherford.pdf |access-date=27 June 2023 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |s2cid=135584871 |archive-date=3 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230103220843/https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E8B7456A024C6ED07D4E891F540C8EE2/S1551929514000029a.pdf/pioneers-in-optics-johann-wilhelm-ritter-and-ernest-rutherford.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Such deflection angles, although rare, were found. Reflecting on these results in one of his last lectures Rutherford was quoted as saying: "It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you."<ref>E. N. da C. Andrade, ''Rutherford and the Nature of the Atom'' (1964), cited in {{cite book |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00009051 |title=Oxford Essential Quotations |edition=4th |year=2016 |chapter=Ernest Rutherford 1871–1937, New Zealand physicist |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780191826719 |editor-first=Susan |editor-last=Ratcliffe |access-date=25 March 2021 |archive-date=30 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210730130401/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00009051 |url-status=live }} Other historians have noted that this quote is only sourced to Andrade's book, see {{Cite journal |last=Heilbron |first=John L. |date=1968 |title=The Scattering of α and β Particles and Rutherford's Atom |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41133273 |journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=247–307 |doi=10.1007/BF00411591 |jstor=41133273 |issn=0003-9519}}</ref> It was Rutherford's interpretation of this data that led him to propose the ], a very small, ] region containing much of the atom's mass.<ref name=charge>{{Cite journal |last1=Rutherford |first1=E. |year=1911 |title=The scattering of α and β particles by matter and the structure of the atom |url=http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/rutherford/rutherford688.html |journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science |series=Series 6 |volume=21 |issue=125 |pages=669–688 |doi=10.1080/14786440508637080 |access-date=6 October 2012 |archive-date=7 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120607013629/http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/rutherford/rutherford688.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Legacy==
], Manchester]]


In 1912, Rutherford was joined by ] (who postulated that electrons moved in specific orbits about the compact nucleus). Bohr adapted Rutherford's nuclear structure to be consistent with ]'s quantum hypothesis. The resulting ] was the basis for ] atomic physics of Heisenberg which remains valid today.<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography"/>
===Nuclear physics===
Rutherford's research, and work done under him as laboratory director, established the nuclear structure of the atom and the essential nature of radioactive decay as a nuclear process. Rutherford's team, using natural alpha particles, demonstrated ''induced'' ] and transmutation, and later, using protons from an accelerator, demonstrated ''artificially-induced'' nuclear reactions and transmutation. He is known as the father of nuclear physics. Rutherford died too early to see ]'s idea of controlled ]s come into being. However, a speech of Rutherford's about his artificially-induced transmutation in lithium, printed in the 12 September 1933 London paper ], was reported by Szilárd to have been his inspiration for thinking of the possibility of a controlled energy-producing ]. Szilard had this idea while walking in London, on the same day.


=== Piezoelectricity ===
Rutherford's speech touched on the 1932 work of his students ] and ] in "splitting" lithium into alpha particles by bombardment with protons from a particle accelerator they had constructed. Rutherford realized that the energy released from the split lithium atoms was enormous, but he also realized that the energy needed for the accelerator, and its essential inefficiency in splitting atoms in this fashion, made the project an impossibility as a practical source of energy (accelerator-induced fission of light elements remains too inefficient to be used in this way, even today). Rutherford's speech in part, read:
During World War I, Rutherford worked on a top-secret project to solve the practical problems of submarine detection. Both Rutherford and ] suggested the use of ], and Rutherford successfully developed a device which measured its output. The use of piezoelectricity then became essential to the development of ] as it is known today. The claim that Rutherford developed ], however, is a misconception, as subaquatic detection technologies utilise Langevin's ].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Katzir |first1=Shaul |title=Who knew piezoelectricity? Rutherford and Langevin on submarine detection and the invention of sonar |journal=Notes and Records of the Royal Society |date=20 June 2012 |volume=66 |issue=2 |pages=141–157 |doi=10.1098/rsnr.2011.0049 |s2cid=1240938 |url=https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsnr.2011.0049 |access-date=2 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Duck |first1=Francis |title=Paul Langevin, U-boats, and ultrasonics |journal=Physics Today |date=1 November 2022 |volume=75 |issue=11 |pages=42–48 |doi=10.1063/PT.3.5122 |bibcode=2022PhT....75k..42D |s2cid=253280842 |url=https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/75/11/42/2848556/Paul-Langevin-U-boats-and-ultrasonicsCreated-in |access-date=2 July 2023 |doi-access=free |archive-date=2 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702184756/https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/75/11/42/2848556/Paul-Langevin-U-boats-and-ultrasonicsCreated-in |url-status=live }}</ref>


=== Discovery of the proton ===
:''We might in these processes obtain very much more energy than the proton supplied, but on the average we could not expect to obtain energy in this way. It was a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy, and anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the atoms was talking moonshine. But the subject was scientifically interesting because it gave insight into the atoms.''<ref>, 12 September 1933, "The British association—breaking down the atom"</ref>
Together with ], Rutherford developed the ] in 1913. Rutherford and Moseley's experiments used ] to bombard various elements with streams of electrons and observed that each element responded in a consistent and distinct manner. Their research was the first to assert that each element could be defined by the properties of its inner structures – an observation that later led to the discovery of the ].<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography"/> This research led Rutherford to theorize that the hydrogen atom (at the time the least massive entity known to bear a positive charge) was a sort of "positive electron" – a component of every atomic element.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rutherford |first1=Ernest |title=The structure of the atom |journal=Philosophical Magazine |date=1914 |volume=27 |pages=488–498 |url=http://www.ub.edu/hcub/hfq/sites/default/files/ruth1914%285%29.pdf |access-date=13 June 2023 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613022543/http://www.ub.edu/hcub/hfq/sites/default/files/ruth1914(5).pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Whittaker |first1=Edmund |title=A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity |date=1989 |volume=2 |publisher=Courier Dover Publications |isbn=0-486-26126-3 |page=87}}</ref>


It was not until 1919 that Rutherford expanded upon his theory of the "positive electron" with a series of experiments beginning shortly before the end of his time at Manchester. He found that nitrogen, and other light elements, ejected a proton, which he called a "hydrogen atom", when hit with α (alpha) particles.<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography"/> In particular, he showed that particles ejected by alpha particles colliding with hydrogen have unit charge and 1/4 the momentum of alpha particles.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rutherford |first1=Ernest |title=LII. Collision of α particles with light atoms II. Velocity of the hydrogen atom |journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science |date=8 April 2009 |volume=37 |issue=222 |pages=562–571 |doi=10.1080/14786440608635917 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14786440608635917?journalCode=tphm17 |access-date=13 June 2023 |series=6 |archive-date=13 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230613022542/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14786440608635917?journalCode=tphm17 |url-status=live }}</ref>
===Items named in honour of Rutherford's life and work===
].]]
; Scientific discoveries
*the element ], Rf, Z=104. (1997)<ref>{{cite news|author=Michael Freemantle |title=ACS Article on Rutherfordium|url=http://pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/print/rutherfordium.html|work=Chemical & Engineering News|publisher=American Chemical Society|year=2003|accessdate=2008-04-02}}</ref>
; Institutions
*], a scientific research laboratory near ], Oxfordshire.
*], a school in ], New Zealand
*], a college at the ] in ], England
*Rutherford Institute for Innovation at the ]
*Rutherford Intermediate School, ]
*Rutherford Hall, a hall of residence at ]
; Awards
*], the highest science medal awarded by the ]
*Rutherford Award at ] for excellence in ] ], Australia.
*] is an award for research in the fields of physics and chemistry by the ].
*] is awarded once every two years by the ] for "distinguished research in nuclear physics or nuclear technology."
*] is an international lecture tour under the auspices of the ] created under the Rutherford Memorial Scheme in 1952.
; Buildings
*Rutherford building at Bedford Modern School.
*A building of the modern ] at the ]
*The Ernest Rutherford Physics Building at ], ]<ref>{{cite web|title=ErnestRutherford Physics Building|url=http://cac.mcgill.ca/campus/buildings/Rutherford_Physics.html|work=Virtual McGill|publisher=McGill University|date=24 January 2000|accessdate=2008-04-02}}</ref>
*Rutherford house, a boarding house at ]<ref>{{cite web|title=Rutherford House|url=http://www.nelsoncollege.ac.nz/rutherford|work=Nelson College|publisher=Nelson College|accessdate=2012-03-16}}</ref>
*Rutherford House, the primary building of ]'s Pipitea Campus, originally the headquarters of the New Zealand Electricity Department, in ].
*The physics and chemistry building at the ], New Zealand
*The Coupland Building at the ], where Rutherford worked, was renamed "The Rutherford Building" in 2006.
*The Rutherford lecture theatre in the Schuster Laboratory at the ]
; Major streets
*Rutherford Close, a residential street in ]
*Lord Rutherford Road in ] (near his birthplace)
*Rutherford Road in the biotechnology district of ]
*Rutherford Street in ].


Rutherford returned to the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919, succeeding J. J. Thomson as the Cavendish professor and the laboratory's director, posts that he held until his death in 1937.<ref name=cam>{{cite web |url=http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history/cavprof.php |title=The Cavendish Professorship of Physics |publisher=University of Cambridge |accessdate=30 November 2013 |archive-date=3 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703172354/http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history/cavprof.php |url-status=dead }}</ref> During his tenure, Nobel prizes were awarded to ] for discovering the neutron (in 1932), ] and ] for an experiment that was to be known as ''splitting the atom'' using a ], and ] for demonstrating the existence of the ].
; Other
*Rutherford House, at Hillcrest High School, ]
*Rutherford House, at Rotorua Intermediate School, ]
*The Rutherford Memorial at Brightwater, New Zealand
*The crater ] on the Moon, and the crater Rutherford on the planet ]
*His image on the obverse of the New Zealand $100 note (since 1992).
*Ernest Rutherford was the subject of a play by Stuart Hoar.
*On the side of the Mond Laboratory on the site of the original ] in Cambridge, there is an engraving in Rutherford's memory in the form of a ], this being the nickname given to him by its commissioner, his colleague ].
*The Rutherford Foundation, a charitable trust set up by the ] to support research in science and technology.<ref>. Royalsociety.org.nz. Retrieved on 2011-01-26.</ref>


=== Development of proton and neutron theory ===
==Publications==
In 1919–1920, Rutherford continued his research on the "hydrogen atom" to confirm that alpha particles break down nitrogen nuclei and to affirm the nature of the products. This result showed Rutherford that hydrogen nuclei were a part of nitrogen nuclei (and by inference, probably other nuclei as well). Such a construction had been suspected for many years, on the basis of atomic weights that were integral multiples of that of hydrogen; see ]. Hydrogen was known to be the lightest element, and its nuclei presumably the lightest nuclei. Now, because of all these considerations, Rutherford decided that a hydrogen nucleus was possibly a fundamental building block of all nuclei, and also possibly a new fundamental particle as well, since nothing was known to be lighter than that nucleus. Thus, confirming and extending the work of ], who in 1898 discovered the proton in streams of ],<ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1002/andp.18943180404|title = Über positive Elektronen und die Existenz hoher Atomgewichte|journal = Annalen der Physik|volume = 318|issue = 4|pages = 669–677|year = 1904|last1 = Wien|first1 = W.|bibcode = 1904AnP...318..669W|url = https://zenodo.org/record/2190505|access-date = 5 September 2020|archive-date = 13 July 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200713133516/https://zenodo.org/record/2190505|url-status = live}}</ref> in 1920 Rutherford postulated the hydrogen nucleus to be a new particle, which he dubbed the '']''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Atop the Physics Wave: Rutherford back in Cambridge, 1919–1937 |url=https://history.aip.org/exhibits/rutherford/sections/atop-physics-wave.html |website=Rutherford's Nuclear World: The Story of the Discovery of the Nucleus |publisher=American Institute of Physics |access-date=26 June 2023 |archive-date=29 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230829155208/https://history.aip.org/exhibits/rutherford/sections/atop-physics-wave.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
*''Radio-activity'' (1904), 2nd ed. (1905), ISBN 978-1-60355-058-1
*''Radioactive Transformations'' (1906), ISBN 978-1-60355-054-3
*''Radiations from Radioactive Substances'' (1919)
*''The Electrical Structure of Matter'' (1926)
*''The Artificial Transmutation of the Elements'' (1933)
*''The Newer Alchemy'' (1937)


In 1921, while working with Niels Bohr, Rutherford theorized about the existence of ]s, (which he had christened in his 1920 ]), which could somehow compensate for the repelling effect of the positive charges of ]s by causing an attractive ] and thus keep the nuclei from flying apart, due to the repulsion between protons. The only alternative to neutrons was the existence of "nuclear electrons", which would counteract some of the proton charges in the nucleus, since by then it was known that nuclei had about twice the mass that could be accounted for if they were simply assembled from hydrogen nuclei (protons). But how these nuclear electrons could be trapped in the nucleus, was a mystery.
==Famous statements==
*''"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine."'' – 1933<ref>{{cite book|author = Hendee, William R.; Ritenour, E. Russell|title = Medical imaging physics|url = http://books.google.co.za/books?id=55lh1B82SLsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q&f=false|publisher = ]|year = 2002|isbn = 0-471-38226-4|page=21 |accessdate=2010-09-07}}</ref>
*''"It was almost as if you fired a 15 inch shell into a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.” (describing the ])''
*''"All science is either physics or stamp collecting" (though he was in 1908 awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry) ''
*''"We haven't the money, so we've got to think."''<ref>{{cite web
|url = http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/beautifulminds/learning.html
|title = Alexander Fleming learning enquiry
|work = Beautiful Minds capture the spirit of Nobel achievement
|publisher = British Library
|accessdate = 2011-07-22}}</ref>
*''"If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment."<ref name="quote">{{cite web|url = http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/ernest_rutherford.html#ixzz1nHlEsxLW|title = Ernest Rutherford Quotes|accessdate = 2012-02-24}}</ref>
*''"You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1."<ref name="quote" />


In 1932, Rutherford's theory of ]s was proved by his associate ], who recognised neutrons immediately when they were produced by other scientists and later himself, in bombarding beryllium with alpha particles. In 1935, Chadwick was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.<ref>{{cite web |title=James Chadwick – Facts |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1935/chadwick/facts/ |website=The Nobel Prize |publisher=Nobel Prize Outreach AB |access-date=16 June 2023 |archive-date=4 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191004015954/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1935/chadwick/facts/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Arms==

{{Infobox COA wide
=== Induced nuclear reaction and probing the nucleus ===
|image = Ernest Rutherford Arms.svg
Rutherford's four part article on the "Collision of α-particles with light atoms" he reported two additional fundamental and far reaching discoveries.<ref name=PaisInwardBound/>{{rp|237}} First, he showed that at high angles the scattering of alpha particles from hydrogen differed from the theoretical results he himself published in 1911. These were the first results to probe the interactions that hold a nucleus together. Second, he showed that α-particles colliding with nitrogen nuclei would react rather than simply bounce off. One product of the reaction was the proton; the other product was shown by ], Rutherford's colleague and former student to be oxygen:
|bannerimage =
:<sup>14</sup>N + α → <sup>17</sup>O + p.
|badgeimage =
Blackett was awarded the Nobel prize in 1948 for his work in perfecting the high-speed cloud chamber apparatus used to make that discovery and many others.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Nobel Prize for Physics : Prof. P. M. S. Blackett, F.R.S |journal=Nature |volume=162 |issue=4126 |year=1948 |pages=841 |doi=10.1038/162841b0|bibcode=1948Natur.162R.841. |doi-access=free }}</ref>
|notes = The arms of Ernest Rutherford consist of:<ref>{{cite book|last=Pais|first=Abraham |authorlink=Abraham Pais|title=Line of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe|year=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|location= Oxford|isbn=0-19-851997-4|page=216}}</ref><ref>
Rutherford therefore recognised "that the nucleus may increase rather than diminish in mass as the result of collisions in which the proton is expelled".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rutherford |first1=Sir Ernest |title=Studies of Atomic Nuclei |url=https://archive.org/details/RoyalInstitutionLibraryOfScience-PhysicalScienceVol9 |date=27 March 1925 |journal=] |volume=62 |issue=1601 |pages=73–76 |publisher=The Royal Institution Library of Sciences |doi=10.1126/science.62.1601.209 |pmid=17748045 |bibcode=1925Sci....62..209R |access-date=2 October 2023}}</ref>
{{cite web

|url = http://www.numericana.com/arms/rutherford.htm|title = Coat-of-Arms of Ernest Rutherford
=== Later years and honours ===
|work = Escutcheons of Science|publisher = Numericana}}</ref>
Rutherford received significant recognition in his home country of New Zealand. In 1901, he earned a ] from the University of New Zealand.<ref name="Venn" /> In 1916, he was awarded the ].<ref>{{cite web |title=Recipients |url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/medals-and-awards/hector-medal/recipients-3/ |publisher=] |access-date=16 February 2021 |archive-date=30 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430164858/https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/medals-and-awards/hector-medal/recipients-3/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1925, Rutherford called for the ] to support education and research, which led to the formation of the ] in the following year.<ref>{{cite web |first=Emma |last=Brewerton |date=15 December 2014 |title=Ernest Rutherford |publisher=Ministry for Culture and Heritage |url=http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/ernest-rutherford |access-date=29 December 2010 |archive-date=1 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121201203746/http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/ernest-rutherford |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1933, Rutherford was one of the two inaugural recipients of the ], which was established by the ] as an award for outstanding scientific research.<ref>{{cite web |title=Background of the Medal |url=http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/programmes/awards/sidey-medal/background/ |publisher=] |access-date=7 August 2015 |archive-date=19 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160919031437/http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/programmes/awards/sidey-medal/background/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Recipients |url=http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/programmes/awards/sidey-medal/recipients/ |publisher=] |access-date=7 August 2015 |archive-date=9 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170409021241/http://royalsociety.org.nz/programmes/awards/sidey-medal/recipients/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
|crest = A baron's coronet. On a helm wreathed of the Colors, a kiwi Proper.

|escutcheon = Per saltire arched Gules and Or, two inescutcheons voided of the first in fess, within each a martlet Sable.
Additionally, Rutherford received a number of awards from the British Crown. He was ] in 1914.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=12647 |date=27 February 1914 |page=269 |city=Edinburgh}}</ref> He was appointed to the ] in the ].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=14089 |date=2 January 1925 |page=4 |city=Edinburgh}}</ref> Between 1925 and 1930, he served as ], and later as president of the ] which helped almost 1,000 university refugees from Germany.<ref name="eb"/> In 1931 was raised to Baron of the United Kingdom under the title '''Baron Rutherford of Nelson''',<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33683 |date=23 January 1931 |page=533}}</ref> decorating his coat of arms with a ] and a ] warrior.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford – Biography |url=https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/ernest-rutherford |website=New Zealand History |access-date=23 June 2023 |archive-date=23 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230623110402/https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/ernest-rutherford |url-status=live }}</ref> The title became extinct upon his unexpected death in 1937.
|supporters = Dexter, Hermes Trismegistus (mythological patron of knowledge and alchemists). Sinister, a Maori warrior.

|compartment =
Since 1992 his portrait appears on the ].
|motto = Primordia Quaerere Rerum ("To seek the first principles of things." Lucretius.)

== Personal life and death ==
Around 1888 Rutherford made his grandmother a wooden potato masher which is now in the collection of the ].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford's potato masher |url=https://prints.royalsociety.org/products/ernest-rutherfords-potato-masher-rs-8469 |access-date=2023-08-10 |website=Royal Society Print Shop |archive-date=10 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230810231752/https://prints.royalsociety.org/products/ernest-rutherfords-potato-masher-rs-8469 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Royal Society Picture Library {{!}} Potato masher,Potato masher |url=https://pictures.royalsociety.org/image-rs-8469 |access-date=2023-08-10 |website=pictures.royalsociety.org |archive-date=10 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230810231608/https://pictures.royalsociety.org/image-rs-8469 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1900, Rutherford married Mary Georgina Newton (1876–1954),<ref>{{Cite web| last=Intergen| title=General| url=https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/| access-date=8 February 2023| website=www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz| archive-date=12 November 2020| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112022628/https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/| url-status=live}}</ref> at ] in ]. (He had become engaged to her before leaving New Zealand.)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/560019/Family-history-in-from-the-cold |title=Family history in from the cold |date=18 March 2009 |access-date=3 July 2017 |archive-date=14 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180914094507/http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/560019/Family-history-in-from-the-cold |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web| first=Fiona| last=Summerfield| url=http://anglicantaonga.org.nz/news/tikanga_pakeha/new_lease_of_life_for_historic_chch_church| title=Historic St Paul's Church in the Christchurch suburb of Papanui is being fully restored| website=Anglican Taonga| date=9 November 2012| access-date=5 February 2019| archive-date=14 September 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180914165438/http://anglicantaonga.org.nz/news/tikanga_pakeha/new_lease_of_life_for_historic_chch_church| url-status=live}}</ref> They had one daughter, Eileen Mary (1901–1930); she married the physicist ], and died during the birth of her fourth child. Rutherford's hobbies included ] and ].<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography" />

For some time before his death, Rutherford had a small ], which he neglected to have repaired, and it eventually became strangulated, rendering him violently ill. He had an emergency operation in London, but died in Cambridge four days later, on 19 October 1937, at age 66, of what physicians termed "intestinal paralysis".<ref name=compeerage>{{cite book|title=The Complete Peerage, Volume XIII – Peerage Creations, 1901–1938|year=1949|publisher=St Catherine's Press|page=495}}</ref> After cremation at ],<ref name=compeerage /> he was given the high honour of burial in ], near ], ], and other illustrious British scientists.<ref name="Nobel Rutherford Biography"/><ref>{{Cite book|last=Heilbron|first=J. L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vNW1wg9npgC&pg=PA123|title=Ernest Rutherford: And the Explosion of Atoms|date=2003-06-12|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=123–124|isbn=978-0-19-512378-4|language=en|access-date=22 February 2016|archive-date=13 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113203740/https://books.google.com/books?id=_vNW1wg9npgC&pg=PA123|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Legacy ==
] in ], New Zealand.]]

Rutherford is considered to be among the greatest scientists in history. At the opening session of the 1938 ], which Rutherford had been expected to preside over before his death, astrophysicist ] spoke in his place and deemed him "one of the greatest scientists of all time", saying:

{{blockquote|In his flair for the right line of approach to a problem, as well as in the simple directness of his methods of attack, often reminds us of Faraday, but he had two great advantages which Faraday did not possess, first, exuberant bodily health and energy, and second, the opportunity and capacity to direct a band of enthusiastic co-workers. Great though Faraday's output of work was, it seems to me that to match Rutherford's work in quantity as well as in quality, we must go back to Newton. In some respects he was more fortunate than Newton. Rutherford was ever the happy warrior – happy in his work, happy in its outcome, and happy in its human contacts.<ref>{{cite news |title=Viceroy Opens The Congress – Sir James Jeans's Address|work=The Times |location=Calcutta |date=3 January 1938 }}</ref>}}

=== Nuclear physics ===
Rutherford is known as "the father of nuclear physics" because his research, and work done under him as laboratory director, established the nuclear structure of the atom and the essential nature of radioactive decay as a nuclear process.<ref name=Father>{{cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford |url=https://ehs.msu.edu/lab-clinic/rad/hist-figures/rutherford.html |website=Environmental Health and Safety Office of Research Regulatory Support |publisher=Michigan State University |access-date=23 June 2023 |archive-date=22 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622163634/https://ehs.msu.edu/lab-clinic/rad/hist-figures/rutherford.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford: father of nuclear science |url=https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/ernest-rutherford-father-of-nuclear-science/ |website=New Zealand Media Resources |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612184534/https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/ernest-rutherford-father-of-nuclear-science/ |archive-date=12 June 2021 |language=en |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Hindu>{{cite web |title=Know the scientist: Ernest Rutherford |url=https://www.thehindu.com/children/know-the-scientist-ernest-rutherford/article34837002.ece |website=The Hindu |access-date=23 June 2023 |language=en-IN |date=17 June 2021 |archive-date=23 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230623183847/https://www.thehindu.com/children/know-the-scientist-ernest-rutherford/article34837002.ece |url-status=live }}</ref> ], a research fellow working under Rutherford, using natural alpha particles, demonstrated ''induced'' ]. Later, Rutherford's team, using protons from an accelerator, demonstrated ''artificially-induced'' nuclear reactions and transmutation.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Giunta |first1=Carmen |title=Rutherford and Blackett artificial transmutation |url=https://web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/classicalcs/ruthblack.html |website=web.lemoyne.edu |access-date=27 June 2023 |date=2019 |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627010731/https://web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/classicalcs/ruthblack.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Rutherford died too early to see ]'s idea of controlled ]s come into being. However, a speech of Rutherford's about his artificially-induced transmutation in lithium, printed in the 12 September 1933 issue of '']'', was reported by Szilárd to have been his inspiration for thinking of the possibility of a controlled energy-producing ].<ref>{{cite web |title=September 12, 1933 – Leó Szilárd conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction |url=https://rinconeducativo.org/en/anniversaries/september-12-1933-leo-szilard-conceives-the-idea-of-the-nuclear-chain-reaction/#:~:text=On%20September%2012%2C%201933%2C%20in%20London%2C%20Szil%C3%A1rd%20read,transformation%20of%20atoms%20was%20talking%20about%20%22silly%20alcohol%22. |website=Rincón educativo |access-date=27 June 2023 |language=Spanish, English |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627010731/https://rinconeducativo.org/en/anniversaries/september-12-1933-leo-szilard-conceives-the-idea-of-the-nuclear-chain-reaction/#:~:text=On%20September%2012%2C%201933%2C%20in%20London%2C%20Szil%C3%A1rd%20read,transformation%20of%20atoms%20was%20talking%20about%20%22silly%20alcohol%22. |url-status=live }}</ref>

Rutherford's speech touched on the 1932 work of his students ] and ] in "splitting" lithium into alpha particles by bombardment with protons from a particle accelerator they had constructed. Rutherford realised that the energy released from the split lithium atoms was enormous, but he also realised that the energy needed for the accelerator, and its essential inefficiency in splitting atoms in this fashion, made the project an impossibility as a practical source of energy (accelerator-induced fission of light elements remains too inefficient to be used in this way, even today). Rutherford's speech in part, read:

{{blockquote|We might in these processes obtain very much more energy than the proton supplied, but on the average we could not expect to obtain energy in this way. It was a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy, and anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the atoms was talking moonshine. But the subject was scientifically interesting because it gave insight into the atoms.<ref>{{Cite news|work=The Times |title=The British association – breaking down the atom |date=12 September 1933}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Rhodes |first=Richard |title=The Making of the Atomic Bomb |location=New York |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=1986 |page=27 |author-link=Richard Rhodes |title-link=The Making of the Atomic Bomb |isbn=0-671-44133-7}}</ref>}}

The element ], Rf, Z=104, was named in honour of Rutherford in 1997.<ref>{{cite news|author=Freemantle, Michael|title=ACS Article on Rutherfordium|url=http://pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/print/rutherfordium.html|work=Chemical & Engineering News|publisher=American Chemical Society|year=2003|access-date=2 April 2008|archive-date=28 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080328131206/http://pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/print/rutherfordium.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Publications ==
* (1904),<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTPmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA347|page=347|volume=23|title=Review of ''Radio-activity'' by Ernest Rutherford|journal=The Oxford Magazine|date=January 25, 1905|publisher=The Proprietors|access-date=22 March 2023|archive-date=10 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210134711/https://books.google.com/books?id=WTPmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA347|url-status=live}}</ref> 2nd ed. (1905), {{ISBN|978-1-60355-058-1}}
* , {{ISBN|978-1-60355-054-3}}
* {{Cite book|title=Radioaktive Substanzen und ihre Strahlungen|volume=|publisher=University press|location=Cambridge|year=1933|language=en|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=11020002}}
* {{Cite book|title=Radioaktive Substanzen und ihre Strahlungen|volume=|publisher=Akademische Verlaggesellschaft|location=Leipzig|year=1913|language=de|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=6739518}}
* <ref>{{cite journal|author=Carmichael, R. D.|author-link=Robert Daniel Carmichael|title=Book Review: Radioactive Substances and their Radiations|journal=Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society|year=1916|volume=22|issue=4|page=200|url=https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1916-22-04/S0002-9904-1916-02762-5/S0002-9904-1916-02762-5.pdf|doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1916-02762-5|doi-access=free|access-date=28 April 2021|archive-date=24 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224194040/https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1916-22-04/S0002-9904-1916-02762-5/S0002-9904-1916-02762-5.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
* ''The Electrical Structure of Matter'' (1926)
* ''The Artificial Transmutation of the Elements'' (1933)
* ''The Newer Alchemy'' (1937)

=== Articles ===
*{{cite journal |author=Ernest Rutherford |year=1899 |title=Uranium Radiation and the Electrical conduction Produced by it |journal=Philosophical Magazine |volume=47 |issue=284 |pages=109–163|url=https://archive.org/details/londonedinburgh5471899lon/page/108/mode/2up}}
* {{cite journal |author=Ernest Rutherford |date=1903 |title=XV. The Magnetic and Electric Deviation of the easily absorbed Rays from Radium |journal=Philosophical Magazine |series=6 |volume=5 |page=177-187 |url=https://archive.org/details/londonedinburgh651903lond/page/176/mode/2up}}
*{{cite journal
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|year=1906
|title=The Mass and Velocity of the α particles expelled from Radium and Actinium
|journal=Philosophical Magazine |series=Series 6
|volume=12
|issue=70
|pages=348–371
|doi=10.1080/14786440609463549
|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1430814
|ref=refRutherford1906
}}
*{{Cite journal |author1=Ernest Rutherford |author2=Thomas Royds |date=1909 |title=XXI. The nature of the α particle from radioactive substances |url=https://archive.org/details/londonedinburg6171909lond/page/280/mode/2up |journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science |language=en |volume=17 |issue=98 |pages=281–286 |doi=10.1080/14786440208636599 |issn=1941-5982}}
* {{cite journal
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|year=1911
|title=The Scattering of α and β Particles by Matter and the Structure of the Atom
|url=https://web.mit.edu/8.13/8.13c/references-fall/rutherford/rutherford-scattering-of-alpha-and-beta-particles.pdf
|journal=] |series=Series 6
|volume=21 |issue= 125|pages=669–688
|doi=10.1080/14786440508637080
|ref=refRutherford1911
}}
* {{cite journal
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|year=1912
|title=The origin of β and γ rays from radioactive substances
|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1430890
|journal=] |series=Series 6
|volume=24 |issue=142 |pages=453–462
|doi=10.1080/14786441008637351
|ref=refRutherford1912
}}
* {{cite journal
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|author2=John Mitchell Nuttal
|year=1913
|title=Scattering of α-Particles by Gases
|url=https://archive.org/details/ClassicalScientificPapersPhysics
|journal=] |series=Series 6
|volume=26 |issue=154 |pages=702–712
|doi=10.1080/14786441308635014
|ref=refRutherfordNuttal1913
}}
* {{cite journal
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|year=1914
|title=The Structure of the Atom
|url=http://www.chemteam.info/Chem-History/Rutherford-1914.html
|journal=] |series=Series 6
|volume=27 |issue=159 |pages=488–498
|doi=10.1080/14786440308635117
}}
* {{cite book
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|year=1938
|chapter=Forty Years of Physics
|editor-last1=Needham |editor-first1=Joseph
|editor-last2=Pagel |editor-first2=Walter
|title=Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge arranged by the History of Science Committee 1936
|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/backgroundtomode032734mbp/page/n85/mode/2up
|publisher=]
}}
* {{cite book
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|year=1913
|title=Radioactive Substances and their Radiations
|url=https://archive.org/details/radioactivesubst00ruthuoft
|publisher=]
}}
*{{cite journal
|author1=Ernest Rutherford
|year=1936
|title=Radioactivity and Atomic Structure
|journal=Journal of the Chemical Society
|volume=1936
|pages=508–516
|doi=10.1039/JR9360000508
|ref=refRutherford1936
}} }}
* "Disintegration of the Radioactive Elements" ''Harper's Monthly Magazine,'' January 1904, pages 279 to 284.


==See also== == See also ==
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==References== == Footnotes ==
{{Reflist|2}} {{notelist}}


==Further reading== == References ==
{{Reflist|35em}}
*{{cite doi|10.1039/RR9710400129}}
*J. Campbell (1999) Rutherford: Scientist Supreme, AAS Publications, Christchurch
*{{cite doi|10.1098/rspa.1954.0254}}
*Reeves, Richard (2008). ''A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford''. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-33369-8
*Rhodes, Richard (1986). ''The Making of the Atomic Bomb''. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-44133-7
*Wilson, David (1983). ''Rutherford. Simple Genius'', Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-23805-4


== Further reading ==
==External links==
* {{cite ODNB|id=35891|title=Rutherford, Ernest|orig-year=2004|year=2008|last=Badash|first=Lawrence}}
{{sisterlinks|s=Ernest Rutherford|author=yes}}
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Cragg | first1 = R. H. | title = Lord Ernest Rutherford of Nelson (1871–1937) | doi = 10.1039/RR9710400129 | journal = ] | volume = 4 | issue = 2 | page = 129| year = 1971 }}
* from Nobel prize official website
* Campbell, John. (1999) , AAS Publications, Christchurch, {{ISBN|0-4730-5700-X}}
* ''The Chemical Nature of the Alpha Particles from Radioactive Substances''
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Marsden | first1 = E. | year = 1954 | title = The Rutherford Memorial Lecture, 1954. Rutherford-His Life and Work, 1871–1937 | journal = ] | volume = 226 | issue = 1166 | pages = 283–305| bibcode= 1954RSPSA.226..283M | doi = 10.1098/rspa.1954.0254 | s2cid = 73381519 }}
*
* ] (2008). ''A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford''. New York: W. W. Norton. {{ISBN|0-393-33369-8}}
*
* ] (1986). '']''. New York: Simon & Schuster. {{ISBN|0-671-44133-7}}
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* Wilson, David (1983). ''Rutherford. Simple Genius'', Hodder & Stoughton, {{ISBN|0-340-23805-4}}
*

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== External links ==
* in 1966 '']''
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* from ]
* American Institute of Physics
* Article on Rutherford's contribution to dating the Age of the Earth
* {{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1908 ''The Chemical Nature of the Alpha Particles from Radioactive Substances''
*
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* — includes link to short biography and other sources (NZHistory.net.nz)
* {{PM20|FID=pe/024860}}
* {{Cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford, 150th anniversary |url=https://sebastienfritsch.wixsite.com/ernestrutherford150?lang=en |access-date=2024-06-29 |language=en}} Well-source site with details on Rutherford's life.
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{{Persondata
|NAME=Rutherford, Ernst
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=New Zealander nuclear physicist
|DATE OF BIRTH=30 August 1871 CE
|PLACE OF BIRTH=Spring Grove, near Nelson, New Zealand
|DATE OF DEATH=19 October 1937
|PLACE OF DEATH=Cambridge, England
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rutherford, Ernest}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Rutherford, Ernest}}
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Latest revision as of 17:13, 18 December 2024

New Zealand physicist (1871–1937) "Lord Rutherford" redirects here. Not to be confused with Lord Rutherfurd or Andrew Rutherford, 1st Earl of Teviot.

The Right HonourableThe Lord Rutherford of NelsonOM FRS HonFRSE
Rutherford, c. 1920s
44th President of the Royal Society
In office
1925–1930
Preceded byCharles Scott Sherrington
Succeeded byFrederick Gowland Hopkins
Personal details
Born(1871-08-30)30 August 1871
Brightwater, Nelson, Colony of New Zealand
Died19 October 1937(1937-10-19) (aged 66)
Cambridge, England
Resting placeWestminster Abbey, London
Alma materUniversity of New Zealand
University of Cambridge
Known for See list
Spouse Mary Georgina Newton ​ ​(m. 1900)
Children1
RelativesRalph H. Fowler (son-in-law)
Awards See list
Scientific career
FieldsAtomic physics
Nuclear physics
Institutions
Academic advisors
Doctoral students See list
Other notable students See list
4th Cavendish Professor of Physics
In office
1919–1937
Preceded byJ. J. Thomson
Succeeded byLawrence Bragg
Signature

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937), was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nuclear physics", and "the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday". In 1908, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances." He was the first Oceanian Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in Canada.

Rutherford's discoveries include the concept of radioactive half-life, the radioactive element radon, and the differentiation and naming of alpha and beta radiation. Together with Thomas Royds, Rutherford is credited with proving that alpha radiation is composed of helium nuclei. In 1911, he theorized that atoms have their charge concentrated in a very small nucleus. He arrived at this theory through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering during the gold foil experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden. In 1912 he invited Niels Bohr to join his lab, leading to the Bohr-Rutherford model of the atom. In 1917, he performed the first artificially induced nuclear reaction by conducting experiments in which nitrogen nuclei were bombarded with alpha particles. These experiments led him to discover the emission of a subatomic particle that he initially called the "hydrogen atom", but later (more precisely) renamed the proton. He is also credited with developing the atomic numbering system alongside Henry Moseley. His other achievements include advancing the fields of radio communications and ultrasound technology.

Rutherford became Director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1919. Under his leadership, the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932. In the same year, the first controlled experiment to split the nucleus was performed by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, working under his direction. In honour of his scientific advancements, Rutherford was recognised as a baron of the United Kingdom. After his death in 1937, he was buried in Westminster Abbey near Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton. The chemical element rutherfordium (104Rf) was named after him in 1997.

Early life and education

Ernest Rutherford was born on 30 August 1871 in Brightwater, a town near Nelson, New Zealand. He was the fourth of twelve children of James Rutherford, an immigrant farmer and mechanic from Perth, Scotland, and his wife Martha Thompson, a schoolteacher from Hornchurch, England. Rutherford's birth certificate was mistakenly written as 'Earnest'. He was known by his family as Ern.

When Rutherford was five he moved to Foxhill, New Zealand, and attended Foxhill School. At age 11 in 1883, the Rutherford family moved to Havelock, a town in the Marlborough Sounds. The move was made to be closer to the flax mill Rutherford's father developed. Ernest studied at Havelock School.

In 1887, on his second attempt, he won a scholarship to study at Nelson College. On his first examination attempt, he received 75 out of 130 marks for geography, 76 out of 130 for history, 101 out of 140 for English, and 200 out of 200 for arithmetic, totalling 452 out of 600 marks. With these marks, he had the highest of anyone from Nelson. When he was awarded the scholarship, he had received 580 out of 600 possible marks. After being awarded the scholarship, Havelock School presented him with a five-volume set of books titled The Peoples of the World. He studied at Nelson College between 1887 and 1889, and was head boy in 1889. He also played in the school's rugby team. He was offered a cadetship in government service, but he declined as he still had 15 months of college remaining.

In 1889, after his second attempt, he won a scholarship to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand, between 1890 and 1894. He participated in its debating society and the Science Society. At Canterbury, he was awarded a complex BA in Latin, English, and Maths in 1892, a MA in Mathematics and Physical Science in 1893, and a BSc in Chemistry and Geology in 1894.

Thereafter, he invented a new form of radio receiver, and in 1895 Rutherford was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, to travel to England for postgraduate study at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. In 1897, he was awarded a BA Research Degree and the Coutts-Trotter Studentship from Trinity College, Cambridge.

Scientific career

Rutherford in 1892, aged 21

When Rutherford began his studies at Cambridge, he was among the first 'aliens' (those without a Cambridge degree) allowed to do research at the university, and was additionally honoured to study under J. J. Thomson.

With Thomson's encouragement, Rutherford detected radio waves at 0.5 miles (800 m), and briefly held the world record for the distance over which electromagnetic waves could be detected, although when he presented his results at the British Association meeting in 1896, he discovered he had been outdone by Guglielmo Marconi, whose radio waves had sent a message across nearly 10 miles (16 km).

Work with radioactivity

Again under Thomson's leadership, Rutherford worked on the conductive effects of X-rays on gases, which led to the discovery of the electron, the results first presented by Thomson in 1897. Hearing of Henri Becquerel's experience with uranium, Rutherford started to explore its radioactivity, discovering two types that differed from X-rays in their penetrating power. Continuing his research in Canada, in 1899 he coined the terms "alpha ray" and "beta ray" to describe these two distinct types of radiation.

In 1898, Rutherford was accepted to the chair of Macdonald Professor of physics position at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, on Thomson's recommendation. From 1900 to 1903, he was joined at McGill by the young chemist Frederick Soddy (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1921) for whom he set the problem of identifying the noble gas emitted by the radioactive element thorium, a substance which was itself radioactive and would coat other substances. Once he had eliminated all the normal chemical reactions, Soddy suggested that it must be one of the inert gases, which they named thoron. This substance was later found to be Rn, an isotope of radon. They also found another substance they called Thorium X, later identified as Rn, and continued to find traces of helium. They also worked with samples of "Uranium X" (protactinium), from William Crookes, and radium, from Marie Curie. Rutherford further investigated thoron in conjunction with R.B. Owens and found that a sample of radioactive material of any size invariably took the same amount of time for half the sample to decay (in this case, 111⁄2 minutes), a phenomenon for which he coined the term "half-life". Rutherford and Soddy published their paper "Law of Radioactive Change" to account for all their experiments. Until then, atoms were assumed to be the indestructible basis of all matter; and although Curie had suggested that radioactivity was an atomic phenomenon, the idea of the atoms of radioactive substances breaking up was a radically new idea. Rutherford and Soddy demonstrated that radioactivity involved the spontaneous disintegration of atoms into other, as yet, unidentified matter.

In 1903, Rutherford considered a type of radiation, discovered (but not named) by French chemist Paul Villard in 1900, as an emission from radium, and realised that this observation must represent something different from his own alpha and beta rays, due to its very much greater penetrating power. Rutherford therefore gave this third type of radiation the name of gamma ray. All three of Rutherford's terms are in standard use today – other types of radioactive decay have since been discovered, but Rutherford's three types are among the most common. In 1904, Rutherford suggested that radioactivity provides a source of energy sufficient to explain the existence of the Sun for the many millions of years required for the slow biological evolution on Earth proposed by biologists such as Charles Darwin. The physicist Lord Kelvin had argued earlier for a much younger Earth, based on the insufficiency of known energy sources, but Rutherford pointed out, at a lecture attended by Kelvin, that radioactivity could solve this problem. Later that year, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society, and in 1907 he returned to Britain to take the chair of physics at the Victoria University of Manchester.

In Manchester, Rutherford continued his work with alpha radiation. In conjunction with Hans Geiger, he developed zinc sulfide scintillation screens and ionisation chambers to count alpha particles. By dividing the total charge accumulated on the screen by the number counted, Rutherford determined that the charge on the alpha particle was two. In late 1907, Ernest Rutherford and Thomas Royds allowed alphas to penetrate a very thin window into an evacuated tube. As they sparked the tube into discharge, the spectrum obtained from it changed, as the alphas accumulated in the tube. Eventually, the clear spectrum of helium gas appeared, proving that alphas were at least ionised helium atoms, and probably helium nuclei. In 1910 Rutherford, with Geiger and mathematician Harry Bateman published their classic paper describing the first analysis of the distribution in time of radioactive emission, a distribution now called the Poisson distribution.

Ernest Rutherford was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".

Model of the atom

See also: Rutherford–Bohr model and Rutherford scattering
Top: Expected results: alpha particles passing through the plum pudding model of the atom undisturbed.
Bottom: Observed results: a small portion of the particles were deflected, indicating a small, concentrated charge. Diagram is not to scale; in reality the nucleus is vastly smaller than the electron shell.

Rutherford continued to make ground-breaking discoveries long after receiving the Nobel prize in 1908. Under his direction in 1909, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden performed the Geiger–Marsden experiment, which demonstrated the nuclear nature of atoms by measuring the deflection of alpha particles passing through a thin gold foil. Rutherford was inspired to ask Geiger and Marsden in this experiment to look for alpha particles with very high deflection angles, which was not expected according to any theory of matter at that time. Such deflection angles, although rare, were found. Reflecting on these results in one of his last lectures Rutherford was quoted as saying: "It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you." It was Rutherford's interpretation of this data that led him to propose the nucleus, a very small, charged region containing much of the atom's mass.

In 1912, Rutherford was joined by Niels Bohr (who postulated that electrons moved in specific orbits about the compact nucleus). Bohr adapted Rutherford's nuclear structure to be consistent with Max Planck's quantum hypothesis. The resulting Rutherford–Bohr model was the basis for quantum mechanical atomic physics of Heisenberg which remains valid today.

Piezoelectricity

During World War I, Rutherford worked on a top-secret project to solve the practical problems of submarine detection. Both Rutherford and Paul Langevin suggested the use of piezoelectricity, and Rutherford successfully developed a device which measured its output. The use of piezoelectricity then became essential to the development of ultrasound as it is known today. The claim that Rutherford developed sonar, however, is a misconception, as subaquatic detection technologies utilise Langevin's transducer.

Discovery of the proton

Together with H.G. Moseley, Rutherford developed the atomic numbering system in 1913. Rutherford and Moseley's experiments used cathode rays to bombard various elements with streams of electrons and observed that each element responded in a consistent and distinct manner. Their research was the first to assert that each element could be defined by the properties of its inner structures – an observation that later led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus. This research led Rutherford to theorize that the hydrogen atom (at the time the least massive entity known to bear a positive charge) was a sort of "positive electron" – a component of every atomic element.

It was not until 1919 that Rutherford expanded upon his theory of the "positive electron" with a series of experiments beginning shortly before the end of his time at Manchester. He found that nitrogen, and other light elements, ejected a proton, which he called a "hydrogen atom", when hit with α (alpha) particles. In particular, he showed that particles ejected by alpha particles colliding with hydrogen have unit charge and 1/4 the momentum of alpha particles.

Rutherford returned to the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919, succeeding J. J. Thomson as the Cavendish professor and the laboratory's director, posts that he held until his death in 1937. During his tenure, Nobel prizes were awarded to James Chadwick for discovering the neutron (in 1932), John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton for an experiment that was to be known as splitting the atom using a particle accelerator, and Edward Appleton for demonstrating the existence of the ionosphere.

Development of proton and neutron theory

In 1919–1920, Rutherford continued his research on the "hydrogen atom" to confirm that alpha particles break down nitrogen nuclei and to affirm the nature of the products. This result showed Rutherford that hydrogen nuclei were a part of nitrogen nuclei (and by inference, probably other nuclei as well). Such a construction had been suspected for many years, on the basis of atomic weights that were integral multiples of that of hydrogen; see Prout's hypothesis. Hydrogen was known to be the lightest element, and its nuclei presumably the lightest nuclei. Now, because of all these considerations, Rutherford decided that a hydrogen nucleus was possibly a fundamental building block of all nuclei, and also possibly a new fundamental particle as well, since nothing was known to be lighter than that nucleus. Thus, confirming and extending the work of Wilhelm Wien, who in 1898 discovered the proton in streams of ionized gas, in 1920 Rutherford postulated the hydrogen nucleus to be a new particle, which he dubbed the proton.

In 1921, while working with Niels Bohr, Rutherford theorized about the existence of neutrons, (which he had christened in his 1920 Bakerian Lecture), which could somehow compensate for the repelling effect of the positive charges of protons by causing an attractive nuclear force and thus keep the nuclei from flying apart, due to the repulsion between protons. The only alternative to neutrons was the existence of "nuclear electrons", which would counteract some of the proton charges in the nucleus, since by then it was known that nuclei had about twice the mass that could be accounted for if they were simply assembled from hydrogen nuclei (protons). But how these nuclear electrons could be trapped in the nucleus, was a mystery.

In 1932, Rutherford's theory of neutrons was proved by his associate James Chadwick, who recognised neutrons immediately when they were produced by other scientists and later himself, in bombarding beryllium with alpha particles. In 1935, Chadwick was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.

Induced nuclear reaction and probing the nucleus

Rutherford's four part article on the "Collision of α-particles with light atoms" he reported two additional fundamental and far reaching discoveries. First, he showed that at high angles the scattering of alpha particles from hydrogen differed from the theoretical results he himself published in 1911. These were the first results to probe the interactions that hold a nucleus together. Second, he showed that α-particles colliding with nitrogen nuclei would react rather than simply bounce off. One product of the reaction was the proton; the other product was shown by Patrick Blackett, Rutherford's colleague and former student to be oxygen:

N + α → O + p.

Blackett was awarded the Nobel prize in 1948 for his work in perfecting the high-speed cloud chamber apparatus used to make that discovery and many others. Rutherford therefore recognised "that the nucleus may increase rather than diminish in mass as the result of collisions in which the proton is expelled".

Later years and honours

Rutherford received significant recognition in his home country of New Zealand. In 1901, he earned a DSc from the University of New Zealand. In 1916, he was awarded the Hector Memorial Medal. In 1925, Rutherford called for the New Zealand Government to support education and research, which led to the formation of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in the following year. In 1933, Rutherford was one of the two inaugural recipients of the T. K. Sidey Medal, which was established by the Royal Society of New Zealand as an award for outstanding scientific research.

Additionally, Rutherford received a number of awards from the British Crown. He was knighted in 1914. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in the 1925 New Year Honours. Between 1925 and 1930, he served as President of the Royal Society, and later as president of the Academic Assistance Council which helped almost 1,000 university refugees from Germany. In 1931 was raised to Baron of the United Kingdom under the title Baron Rutherford of Nelson, decorating his coat of arms with a kiwi and a Māori warrior. The title became extinct upon his unexpected death in 1937.

Since 1992 his portrait appears on the New Zealand one hundred-dollar note.

Personal life and death

Around 1888 Rutherford made his grandmother a wooden potato masher which is now in the collection of the Royal Society.

In 1900, Rutherford married Mary Georgina Newton (1876–1954), at St Paul's Anglican Church, Papanui in Christchurch. (He had become engaged to her before leaving New Zealand.) They had one daughter, Eileen Mary (1901–1930); she married the physicist Ralph Fowler, and died during the birth of her fourth child. Rutherford's hobbies included golf and motoring.

For some time before his death, Rutherford had a small hernia, which he neglected to have repaired, and it eventually became strangulated, rendering him violently ill. He had an emergency operation in London, but died in Cambridge four days later, on 19 October 1937, at age 66, of what physicians termed "intestinal paralysis". After cremation at Golders Green Crematorium, he was given the high honour of burial in Westminster Abbey, near Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and other illustrious British scientists.

Legacy

A statue of a young Ernest Rutherford at his memorial in Brightwater, New Zealand.

Rutherford is considered to be among the greatest scientists in history. At the opening session of the 1938 Indian Science Congress, which Rutherford had been expected to preside over before his death, astrophysicist James Jeans spoke in his place and deemed him "one of the greatest scientists of all time", saying:

In his flair for the right line of approach to a problem, as well as in the simple directness of his methods of attack, often reminds us of Faraday, but he had two great advantages which Faraday did not possess, first, exuberant bodily health and energy, and second, the opportunity and capacity to direct a band of enthusiastic co-workers. Great though Faraday's output of work was, it seems to me that to match Rutherford's work in quantity as well as in quality, we must go back to Newton. In some respects he was more fortunate than Newton. Rutherford was ever the happy warrior – happy in his work, happy in its outcome, and happy in its human contacts.

Nuclear physics

Rutherford is known as "the father of nuclear physics" because his research, and work done under him as laboratory director, established the nuclear structure of the atom and the essential nature of radioactive decay as a nuclear process. Patrick Blackett, a research fellow working under Rutherford, using natural alpha particles, demonstrated induced nuclear transmutation. Later, Rutherford's team, using protons from an accelerator, demonstrated artificially-induced nuclear reactions and transmutation.

Rutherford died too early to see Leó Szilárd's idea of controlled nuclear chain reactions come into being. However, a speech of Rutherford's about his artificially-induced transmutation in lithium, printed in the 12 September 1933 issue of The Times, was reported by Szilárd to have been his inspiration for thinking of the possibility of a controlled energy-producing nuclear chain reaction.

Rutherford's speech touched on the 1932 work of his students John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton in "splitting" lithium into alpha particles by bombardment with protons from a particle accelerator they had constructed. Rutherford realised that the energy released from the split lithium atoms was enormous, but he also realised that the energy needed for the accelerator, and its essential inefficiency in splitting atoms in this fashion, made the project an impossibility as a practical source of energy (accelerator-induced fission of light elements remains too inefficient to be used in this way, even today). Rutherford's speech in part, read:

We might in these processes obtain very much more energy than the proton supplied, but on the average we could not expect to obtain energy in this way. It was a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy, and anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the atoms was talking moonshine. But the subject was scientifically interesting because it gave insight into the atoms.

The element rutherfordium, Rf, Z=104, was named in honour of Rutherford in 1997.

Publications

Articles

See also

Footnotes

References

  1. ^ "Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy". Archived from the original on 1 December 2017.
  2. "University of the Punjab - Science". pu.edu.pk. Archived from the original on 2 October 2023. Retrieved 15 September 2023. The expedition included Professor James Martin Benade (Professor of Physics at Forman Christian College Lahore) and Dr. Nazir Ahmad (a PhD student of Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge who later on became the First Chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 1956).
  3. Hameed, A. Khan; Qurashi, M. M.; Hussain, E. T.; Hayee, M. I., eds. (2006). "Physics in Developing Countries – Past, Present & Future" (PDF). Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South. COMSATS Series of Publications on Science and Technology. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 September 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
  4. Government College University, Lahore (GCU) (4 September 2009). "Dr. Rafi Muhammad Chaudhri Chair in Physics – About the Chair". Chief Librarian GC University Library, Lahore. GC University. Archived from the original on 16 March 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
  5. Grodzins, Lee (February 1994). "Obituaries: Zhang Wen-Yu". Physics Today. 47 (2): 116. doi:10.1063/1.2808417. Zhang studied under Ernest Rutherford in the mid-1930s, receiving his degree from Cambridge University in 1938.
  6. Zhang Wenyu (张文裕) (28 March 2018). 高能实验物理学家张文裕:回忆导师卢瑟福生命中的最后两年. thepaper.com (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 12 August 2021. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  7. ^ "Ernest Rutherford". Environmental Health and Safety Office of Research Regulatory Support. Michigan State University. Archived from the original on 22 June 2023. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
  8. ^ Badash, Lawrence. "Ernest Rutherford | Accomplishments, Atomic Theory, & Facts | Britannica". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 26 September 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
  9. Campbell, John. "Rutherford – A Brief Biography". Rutherford.org.nz. Archived from the original on 12 May 2020. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  10. Rutherford, E.; Royds, T. (1908). "Spectrum of the radium emanation". Philosophical Magazine. Series 6. 16 (92): 313. doi:10.1080/14786440808636511. Archived from the original on 23 December 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  11. Longair, M. S. (2003). Theoretical concepts in physics: an alternative view of theoretical reasoning in physics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 377–378. ISBN 978-0-521-52878-8. Archived from the original on 30 October 2023. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  12. Rutherford, E. (1919). "Collision of α particles with light atoms. IV. An anomalous effect in nitrogen". The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. Series 6. 37 (222): 581–587. doi:10.1080/14786440608635919. Archived from the original on 2 November 2019. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  13. Rutherford, E. (1920). "Bakerian Lecture. Nuclear Constitution of Atoms". Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 97 (686): 374–400. Bibcode:1920RSPSA..97..374R. doi:10.1098/rspa.1920.0040.
  14. ^ A.H. McLintock (18 September 2007). "Rutherford, Sir Ernest (Baron Rutherford of Nelson, O.M., F.R.S.)". An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (1966 ed.). Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. ISBN 978-0-478-18451-8. Archived from the original on 3 December 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2008.
  15. J.L. Heilbron (12 June 2003). Ernest Rutherford And the Explosion of Atoms. Oxford University Press. p. 12. ISBN 0-19-512378-6. Archived from the original on 29 August 2023. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
  16. ^ Campbell, John. "Rutherford, Ernest 1871–1937". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
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video icon Presentation by Richard Reeves on his book A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford,, January 16, 2008, C-SPAN
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