Ernest Rutherford, The Man Who ‘Split’ The Atom

Ernest Rutherford’s image first appeared on New Zealand’s $100 banknote in 1992

August 30, 1871 — New Zealand scientist Ernest Rutherford, who would become world-famous as “the Father of Nuclear Physics” was born on this day.

Though his accomplishments could be baffling to many people, to scientists he was a man with an exceptional mind responsible for a remarkable series of discoveries in the fields of radioactivity and nuclear physics.

He discovered alpha and beta rays, laid down the laws of radioactive decay, and identified alpha particles as helium nuclei. Above all, he set out the nuclear structure of the atom and became the first person to “split” an atom in a nuclear reaction.

Ernest Rutherford was born on a farm at Spring Grove in New Zealand, the second son in a family of twelve children. His father was an emigrant farmer from Scotland, and his mother taught English at the local school.

At 16 he went to New Zealand’s famous Nelson Collegiate School. Two years later, in 1889, displaying an exceptionally bright mind, he was awarded a university scholarship and went to Canterbury College, University Of New Zealand, in Wellington.

Rutherford was to take a double first M.A. degree in Physical Science and Mathematics in 1893 and his Bachelor of Science degree in 1894. In the same year, he was awarded his Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.

This fellowship allowed him to travel to England and complete his post-grad at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge where he worked as a research scholar under the renowned scientist J. J. Thomson.

There he began experimenting with the transmission of radio waves, went on to join Thomson’s ongoing investigation into the conduction of electricity through gases, and then turned to the field of radioactivity.

He uncovered electromagnetic waves at half a mile, a stupendous achievement at the time, and held the record for the distance over which radio waves could be perceived.

His work took him to other institutions in the UK including Manchester University where he collaborated with Hans Geiger (of Geiger counter fame).

During the First World War Rutherford turned to solving problems connected with submarine detection, and after the war he succeeded J. J. Thomson in the Cavendish professorship at Cambridge.

It was during these post-war years that he became the first person to cause the change of one element into another, using alpha radiation to transform nitrogen into oxygen.

In his experiment he successfully “split” the atom, ensuring his lasting scientific fame and leading to him being described in the Press as “the world’s first successful alchemist.”

His image has appeared on commemorative stamps, and, since 1992, New Zealand’s $100 banknote. He is the only New Zealander to have a chemical element – rutherfordium – named in his honour.

Apparently scornful of other work, Rutherford was at one time quoted as saying: “In science, there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.”

It is perhaps ironic, then, that the highest honour that he was to achieve – the Nobel Prize – was awarded not for his work in physics, but in chemistry.

The Prize came about because from 1898 to 1907 Rutherford was a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and while there, in collaboration with Frederick Soddy, he discovered that heavy atoms have a tendency to decay into lighter atoms.

This achievement heralded modern techniques of carbon dating and won Rutherford the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances”.

In the UK, Rutherford was awarded a knighthood and then – fatally – made a peer in 1931 with a seat in the House of Lords under the title Baron Rutherford of Nelson.

It was a fatal appointment because in October, 1937, Rutherford was admitted to hospital for a routine operation on an umbilical hernia. Unfortunately, English protocol at the time dictated that only a titled doctor could operate on a lord. The delay in finding one proved fatal and at 66 “the Father Of Nuclear Physics” was dead.

Rutherford was given the ultimate honour of burial in Westminster Abbey where he rests near other illustrious scientists such as Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Published: August 15, 2022
Updated: October 18, 2022