Sir Ernest RutherfordBorn 30 Aug 1871; died 19 Oct 1937 at age 66. (1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson) Sir Ernest Rutherford was a New Zealand-English physicist who laid the groundwork for the development of nuclear physics. He worked under Sir J. J. Thomson at Cambridge University (1895-98). Then he collaborated with Frederick Soddy in studying radioactivity. On 1 Sep 1898 he dateda paper naming alpha particles and beta particles (Gamma radiation was discovered in 1900 by Paul Villard.) the following year. In 1905, with Soddy, he announced that radioactive decay involves a series of transformations. In 1907, with Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, he devised the alpha-particle scattering experiment that led in 1911 to the discovery of the atomic nucleus. In 1919 he achieved the artificial splitting of light atoms. In 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. |
