Ernest
Rutherford, the son of a farmer, was born in Brightwater, New
Zealand in 1871. He won a scholarship to Canterbury College, Christchurch,
where he carried out research into magnetic viscosity.
In
1895 he won a scholarship to Trinity College,
Cambridge. He worked on wireless transmissions
and discovered the three types of uranium radiations.
In
1907 Rutherford became professor at Manchester
University. The following year he won the Nobel
Prize for chemistry. He also worked with Hans
Geiger together
they studied the mathematical relationship between the amount of alpha
scattering and atomic weight. Between 1912 and 1916 Rutherford and
Niels Bohr developed a model of atomic structure
and helped to establish the validity of quantum theory.
During
the First World War Rutherford did research
on submarine detection for the Admiralty. In 1919 he discovered that
alpha-ray bombardments induced atomic transformation in atmospheric
nitrogen, liberating hydrogen nuclei. His research enabled him to
predict the existence of the neutron that was eventually discovered
by James
Chadwick.
Ernest
Rutherford, who was president of the Royal Society from 1925 to 1930,
died in 1937.
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