author
Ernest Rutherford
1871–1937
A farm boy from New Zealand who helped reveal the hidden structure of the atom, he became one of the key founders of nuclear physics. His experiments changed how scientists understood matter and earned him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
4 Audiobooks
Radio-Activity
by Ernest Rutherford
The natural and artificial disintegration of the elements An address by Professor Sir Ernest Rutherford
by Ernest Rutherford
The chemical nature of the alpha particles from radioactive substances
by Ernest Rutherford
The new gas from radium
by Ernest Rutherford, Harriet Brooks
About the author
Born near Nelson, New Zealand, in 1871, Ernest Rutherford studied at Canterbury College before moving to Cambridge to work in J. J. Thomson’s Cavendish Laboratory. He later held major posts at McGill University in Canada, the University of Manchester, and the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, where he became one of the most influential experimental physicists of his time.
Rutherford’s work on radioactivity helped show that atoms were not indivisible after all. He identified and named alpha and beta radiation, helped explain radioactive decay, and, through the famous gold-foil experiment led in his laboratory, showed that an atom is mostly empty space with a small, dense nucleus at its center. That insight opened the way for modern atomic physics.
In 1908 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances. Often remembered as a brilliant, energetic leader as well as a great experimenter, Rutherford shaped a generation of scientists and left a lasting mark on both physics and chemistry.