Rutherford

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Rutherford at age ten was already preforming experiments by using the speed of sound to measure the distance of a firing cannon. Won many scholarships in college. Discovered two separat types of emissions came from radioactive atoms which he named alpha and beta rays. He also made the nuclear model. He has made many more achievements and discovers over his life time that created the things we have and know today.

Who was Ernest Rutherford?? Ernest Rutherford was born August 30th 1871 in Nelson,New Zeland. He completed his early education in New Zeland at the age of 16. After he recieved a schlorship to the University of New Zeland in Cantaberry College as double major in both mathmatics and physical science, he graduated with a masters in those two feilds. Ernest left New Zealand in 1895 as a highly skilled 23-year-old. He held three degrees from the University of New Zealand and had a reputation as an outstanding researcher and a innovator working at the forefront of electrical technology.

What are some of his achivements? One of his achivements was encouraged by Sir Robert Ball, who wished to solve a difficult problem that a ship could not detect a lighthouse in fog, Rutherford increased the sensitivity of his apparatus. IN february of 1896, he could detect electromagnetic waves over a distance of several hundred metres, which was then a world record. Rutherford also developed several ingenious technigues to study the mechanism whereby normally insulating gases become electrical conductors when a high voltage is appied across them. When X-rays were dicovered a few months later he used them to intiate electrical conduction in gases. He would repeat this with rays from radioactive atoms when they too, where discovered in 1896. His interest however, soon switched to understanding radioactivity, an interest which then became his life's work. in 1898 he discovered two separat types of emissions that came from radioactive atoms which he named alpha and beta rays. In the near term from advancement at Cambridge, Rutherford in 1898 accepted a professorship at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At McGill, Rutherford discovered radon, a chemically unreactive but radioactive gas. With the help of a young chemist, Frederick Soddy, Unravelled the mysteries of radioactivity, showing that some heavy atoms spontaneously decay into slightly lighter atoms. This brought him to world attention. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Soviety of Canada in 1900 and of London in1903. His first book was published in 1904. In 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his investigations into the distegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances. Ernest Rutherfod was Knighted in the 1914 New Years Honours list. Rutherfords Atomic model

Did Ernest Rutherford have a family? Rutherford married Mary Georgina Newton, They only had one child, a daughter they named Eileen in 1901. Eileen Some years later married Ralph Fowler, a mathematical physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory. They had four children together; Two sons Peter and Patrick and two daughters Elizabeth and Ruth. Peter became a distinguished cosmic ray physicist, Patrick an electrical engineer monitoring safety at nuclear power plants, Elizabeth a Doctor, and Ruth a research physiologist. Eileen however died in 1930, nine days after the birth of her fourth child from embolism and just two days before christmas. She was only 29 years old. This tragedy caused Rutherford much grief that overshadowed his elevation to the peerage in the New Year's honours list for 1931.

When did Rutherford die? Ernest Rutherford died at age 66 on the 19th of October 1937, he died of delays in operating on his partially stangulated umbilical hernia. His ashes were interred in London's Westminster Abbey, under an inscribed flagstone near the choir screen in the Nave. Mary, his wife, later died in 1954.

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