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Ernest Rutherford

PhysicistBritain

Canada
Nobel Prize WinnerScientist
Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford (1871 – 1937) was a New Zealand-born British physicist and recipient of the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is often called the “father of nuclear physics.”

After studying with J. J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, Rutherford became a professor and chair of the Physics Department at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. In Montreal, he conducted the research that led to his Nobel Prize, including discovering the principle of radioactive half-lives and separating and naming alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.

In 1907, Rutherford returned to Great Britain to teach at the University of Manchester. Two years later, he, Hans Geiger, and Ernest Marsden conducted the Geiger-Marsden experiment, where they observed alpha particles scattering backwards when fired at a gold foil. The surprising results of this experiment (Rutherford said, “It was as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you”) led Rutherford to formulate his model of the atomic nucleus, a revolutionary development in nuclear physics.

In 1919, he became Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. Rutherford also coined the term “proton” and theorized about the existence of neutrons, which were discovered by his colleague and former student James Chadwick in 1932.

Rutherford had an enormous influence on the field of nuclear physics and mentored many future Nobel Prize winners and prominent scientists, including Chadwick, Niels Bohr and Otto Hahn. He died on October 19, 1937.

Scientific Contributions

For more information about Rutherford’s scientific contributions, visit the Nobel Prize website.

Ernest Rutherford's Timeline
1871 Aug 30th Born in Nelson, New Zealand.
18931894 Received degrees in Mathematics and Physical Science from Canterbury College.
1895 Studied under J. J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
18981907 Macdonald Chair of Physics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
19071919 Langworthy Professor of Physics in the University of Manchester.
1911 Theorized the Rutherford model of the atom, at the center of which exists a nucleus containing the majority of the atom's mass and all of its positive charge.
1919 Named Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge University.
1920 Coined the term "proton" and theorized the existence of the nucleus.
1932 The neutron was discovered by James Chadwick under the direction of Rutherford.
1937 Oct 19th Died in Cambridge, England.

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