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1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
(30 Aug 1871 - 19 Oct 1937)

British physicist who laid the groundwork for the development of nuclear physics. He identified alpha, beta and gamma emissions during radioactive decay, and devised the alpha-particle scattering experiment that led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus.


Science Quotes by 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford (7)

I have to keep going, as there are always people on my track. I have to publish my present work as rapidly as possible in order to keep in the race. The best sprinters in this road of investigation are Becquerel and the Curies...
— 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
Letter to his mother (5 Jan1902). Quoted in A. S. Eve, Rutherford: Being the Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford (1939), 80. In Laurie M. Brown, Abraham Pais and A. B. Pippard, Twentieth Century Physics (1995), 58.
See also:  |  Publication (30)  |  Research (107)

I think a strong claim can be made that the process of scientific discovery may be regarded as a form of art. This is best seen in the theoretical aspects of Physical Science. The mathematical theorist builds up on certain assumptions and according to well understood logical rules, step by step, a stately edifice, while his imaginative power brings out clearly the hidden relations between its parts. A well constructed theory is in some respects undoubtedly an artistic production. A fine example is the famous Kinetic Theory of Maxwell. ... The theory of relativity by Einstein, quite apart from any question of its validity, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent work of art.
Responding to the toast, 'Science!' at the Royal Academy of the Arts in 1932.)
— 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
Quoted in Lawrence Badash, 'Ernest Rutherford and Theoretical Physics,' in Robert Kargon and Peter Achinstein (eds.) Kelvin's Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives (1987), 352.
See also:  |  Art (5)  |  Discovery (58)  |  Imagination (17)  |  Kinetic Theory (3)  |  Physical Science (3)  |  Relativity (12)  |  Theory (72)

I've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911)
— 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
See also:  |  Biography (102)

It is not the nature of things for any one man to make a sudden, violent discovery; science goes step by step and every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you hear of a sudden unexpected discovery - a bolt from the blue - you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence of one man or another, and it is the mutual influence which makes the enormous possibility of scientific advance. Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single man, but on the combined wisdom of thousands of men, all thinking of the same problem and each doing his little bit to add to the great structure of knowledge which is gradually being erected.
— 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
Quoted in Robert B. Heywood, 'The Works of the Mind', The Scientist (1947), 178.
See also:  |  Discovery (58)

Now I know what the atom looks like.
— 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
See also:  |  Atom (46)  |  Experiment (100)

The great object is to find the theory of the matter [of X-rays] before anyone else, for nearly every professor in Europe is now on the warpath.
— 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
See also:  |  X-ray (4)

You know, I am sorry for the poor fellows that haven't got labs to work in.
— 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford
See also:  |  Experiment (100)  |  Laboratory (14)



Quotes by others about 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson Ernest Rutherford (1)

But no Anglo-Saxon can understand relativity.
Said at a dinner in 1910, teasing Ernest Rutherford, who replied, 'No, they have too much sense.'
Quoted in Richard Reeves, The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 66.
See also:  |  Relativity (12)

[Ernest Rutherford is]...a second Newton.
Weizmann

Einstein ... always spoke to me of Rutherford in the highest terms, calling him a second Newton.
Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizman (1949), 118. Quoted in A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 65-66.

As scientists the two men were contrasting types—Einstein all calculation, Rutherford all experiment ... There was no doubt that as an experimenter Rutherford was a genius, one of the greatest. He worked by intuition and everything he touched turned to gold. He had a sixth sense.
(Reminiscence comparing his friend, Ernest Rutherford, with Albert Einstein, whom he also knew.)
Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizman (1949), 118. Quoted in A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 65-66.

They were very different men. Or boys. Someone said they were both like curious children—Einstein the merry boy, Rutherford the boisterous one. They were looking and working in different directions—Einstein looking outward, rather dreamily trying to discover where we came from, and Rutherford drilling deep to discover what we were.
A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2007), 66.

His work was so great that it cannot be compassed in a few words. His death is one of the greatest losses ever to occur to British science.
Describing Ernest Rutherford upon his death at age 66. Thomson, then 80 years old, was once his teacher.
Quoted in Time Magazine (1 Nov 1937).


See also:
  • Today in Science History short biography of Ernest Rutherford, born 30 Aug 1871.
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