Who he was
Ernest Rutherford grew up on a farm in New Zealand and won scholarships, first to Canterbury College in Christchurch and then to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. He went on to lead research groups in Montreal, Manchester and Cambridge, and trained many future Nobel Prize winners. He liked to say he was a physicist, and he was amused to receive his Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Key contributions
Alpha and beta radiation. In 1899 he showed that the radiation from uranium contains two kinds of rays: alpha rays, stopped by a sheet of paper, and more penetrating beta rays. He later showed that alpha particles are helium nuclei.
Elements that change. Working with the chemist Frederick Soddy in Montreal, he showed in 1902 that radioactivity is the transformation of one element into another. Each radioactive substance decays at its own steady rate, described by its half-life. This was the work recognized by the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The nucleus. In Manchester, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden fired alpha particles at thin gold foil. Most passed straight through, but about 1 in 8000 bounced back. In 1911 Rutherford explained why: almost all the mass of an atom is in a tiny, positively charged nucleus, with electrons around it in mostly empty space.
Key idea
Rutherford’s nuclear atom is the model at the start of every chemistry course: a small, dense nucleus surrounded by electrons. Radioactivity happens in the nucleus; chemistry happens in the electrons.
The first nuclear reaction. In 1919 he reported that alpha particles can knock a proton out of nitrogen nuclei, turning nitrogen into oxygen:
This was the first nuclear reaction made deliberately in a laboratory.
Prizes and legacy
Rutherford received the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He also named the proton and predicted the existence of the neutron, which his colleague James Chadwick discovered in 1932. Element 104, rutherfordium, is named in his honour.
Connections to your lessons
His work is at the heart of the lessons on atomic structure (the nuclear model), radioactive decay (alpha and beta radiation, half-life) and fission and fusion (nuclear reactions).
Timeline
- 1871Born near Nelson, New Zealand, one of twelve children of a farming family.
- 1895A scholarship takes him to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge to work with J. J. Thomson.
- 1898Becomes professor of physics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
- 1899Shows that the rays from uranium are of two kinds, which he names alpha and beta radiation.
- 1902With Frederick Soddy, proposes that radioactive elements disintegrate, turning into other elements, at a rate described by a half-life.
- 1907Moves to the University of Manchester.
- 1908Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; with Thomas Royds, shows soon after that alpha particles are helium nuclei.
- 1911Explains the gold-foil experiments of Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden: the atom has a tiny, dense, positive nucleus.
- 1919Reports the first artificial nuclear reaction, changing nitrogen into oxygen with alpha particles, and becomes head of the Cavendish Laboratory.
- 1931Made a peer as Baron Rutherford of Nelson.
- 1937Dies in Cambridge and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Sources and further reading
Explore next
Marie Curie
1867–1934
Marie Curie (1867–1934) discovered polonium and radium, coined the word radioactivity and won Nobel Prizes in both physics (1903) and chemistry (1911).
Svante Arrhenius
1859–1927
Svante Arrhenius (1859–1927) showed that salts, acids and bases split into ions in water, gave us the Arrhenius equation and won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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