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Lord Rutherford of Nelson on the New Zealand 100 dollar note
Rutherford was born at Spring Grove, (now in Brightwater), near Nelson, New Zealand. He studied at Nelson College and Canterbury College, with three degrees and two years of research at the forefront of electrical technology.
In 1895Events January events January 5 Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. February events February 14 First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnes Rutherford travelled to EnglandEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England for postgraduate study at the Cavendish LaboratoryThe Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics of the University of Cambridge. The Department is itself part of the School of Physical Sciences. It was built in 1873 as a teaching laboratory. It was initially on the New Museums site off Free School, University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is the second-oldest academic institution in the English-speaking world (after Oxford). According to legend, the University was founded in 1209 by scholars escaping Oxford after a fight with locals. Cambridge and the University (1895- 1898Events January 1 New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. January 13 Emile Zola's J'accus), resident at Trinity CollegeTrinity College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Trinity is the largest and richest of the colleges in Cambridge, and is now a home to around 600 undergraduates, 300 graduates, and over 160 Fellows.. There he briefly held the world record for the distance over which wireless waves were detected. During the investigation of radioactivityRadioactive decay Radioactivity is the process by which unstable atomic nuclei decay. This process normally produces ionizing radiation with a relatively large amount of energy. This energy can be harnessed in the form of nuclear power, or it can be very, he coined the terms alpha and beta rays.
In 1898 Rutherford was appointed to the chair of physics at McGill University where he did the work which gained him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He had demonstrated that radioactivity was the spontaneous disintegration of atoms. This is ironic given his famous remark "In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.". He noticed that in a sample of radioactive material, it invariably took the same amount of time for half the sample to decay — its " half-life" — and created a practical application for this phenomenon, using this constant rate of decay as a clock, which could then be used to help determine the actual age of the Earth, which was much older than most scientists at the time believed.
In 1907 he took the chair of physics at Manchester University. There he discovered the nuclear nature of atoms, and was the world's first successful alchemist: he converted nitrogen into oxygen. While working with Niels Bohr (who figured out that electrons moved in specific orbits) Rutherford theorized about the existence of neutrons, which could compensate for the repulsive effect of the positive charge of protons by increasing the attractive nuclear forces, and thus keeping the nuclei of heavy atoms from breaking apart.
In 1917 he returned to the Cavendish as Director. Under him, Nobel Prizes were awarded to Chadwick for discovering the neutron, Cockcroft and Walton for splitting the atom using a particle accelerator and Appleton for demonstrating the existence of the ionosphere.
His research, along with that of his protege, Sir Mark Oliphant was instrumental in the convening of the Manhattan Project.
He was knighted in 1914, was admitted to the Order of Merit in 1925, and in 1931 was created Baron Rutherford of Nelson, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridge. He appears on New Zealand's hundred dollar note and has appeared on postage stamps of Russia ( 1971), Canada ( 1971), Sweden ( 1968) and New Zealand ( 1971 and 1999). In 1997 the element rutherfordium was named in his honour. Also craters on Mars and the Moon were named after him.
| Preceded by: New Creation | Baron Rutherford of Nelson | Succeeded by: Extinct |
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