Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, in Nelson, New Zealand, the fourth child and second son in a family of seven sons and five daughters.
Ernest received his early education in Government schools and at the age of 16 entered Nelson Collegiate School. In 1889 he was awarded a University scholarship and he proceeded to the University of New Zealand, Wellington. He graduated M.A. in 1893 with a double first in Mathematics and Physical Science and he continued with research work at the College for a short time, receiving the B.Sc. degree the following year. That same year, 1894, he was awarded scholarship, enabling him to go to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a research student.
Rutherford returned to England in 1907 to become Langworthy Professor of Physics in the University of Manchester. 1919 he accepted an invitation as Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. He also became Chairman of the Advisory Council, H.M. Government, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Royal Institution, London; and Director of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory, Cambridge.
He was one of the first to design highly original experiments with high-frequency, alternating currents.
On his arrival at Cambridge his talents were quickly recognized by Professor Thomson. During his first spell at the Cavendish Laboratory, he invented a detector for electromagnetic waves. He worked jointly with Thomson on the behaviour of the ions observed in gases which had been treated with X-rays, and also, in 1897, on the mobility of ions in relation to the strength of the electric field, and on related topics such as the photoelectric effect.
With R.B. Owens he studied the ‘emanation’ of thorium and discovered a new noble gas, an isotope of radon, which was later to be known as thoron.
Rutherford continued his research on the properties of the radium emanation and of the alpha rays. In 1912 Niels Bohr joined him at Manchester and he adapted Rutherford’s nuclear structure to Max Planck’s quantum theory. In 1913, together with H. G. Moseley, he used cathode rays to bombard atoms of various elements and showed that the inner structures correspond with a group of lines which characterize the elements. In 1919, he discovered that the nuclei of certain light elements, such as nitrogen, could be ‘disintegrated’ by the impact of energetic alpha particles coming from some radioactive source, and that during this process fast protons were emitted.
He died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937.
