Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron definition of Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron, 1871–1937, British physicist, b. New Zealand. Rutherford left New Zealand in 1895, having earned three degrees from the Univ. of New Zealand but having failed to secure a post as a schoolteacher. After working under J. J. Thomson Thomson, Sir Joseph John, 1856–1940, English physicist. From 1884 to 1919 he was Cavendish professor of experimental physics at Cambridge. J. J. Thomson was one of the founders of modern physics.
..... Click the link for more information. at Cambridge he was professor of physics at McGill Univ. (1898–1907), professor and director of the physical laboratory at the Univ. of Manchester (1907–19), and in 1919 succeeded Thomson as professor and director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge.

Rutherford is known for his studies of radioactivity radioactivity, spontaneous disintegration or decay of the nucleus of an atom by emission of particles, usually accompanied by electromagnetic radiation . The energy produced by radioactivity has important military and industrial applications.
..... Click the link for more information. and for his discovery of the atomic nucleus nucleus, in physics, the extremely dense central core of an atom .

The Nature of the Nucleus

Composition

Atomic nuclei are composed of two types of particles, protons and neutrons, which are collectively known as nucleons.
..... Click the link for more information. . He discovered and named alpha and beta radiation and with Frederick Soddy Soddy, Frederick (sŏd`ē), 1877–1956, English chemist. He worked under Lord Rutherford at McGill Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. proposed a theory of radioactive transformation of atoms; for this work he was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. On the basis of experiments with alpha rays carried out under his direction by H. Geiger and E. Marsden he was led (1911) to a description of the atom as a small, heavy nucleus surrounded by orbital electrons; this nuclear model of the atom was taken by Niels Bohr Harald August Bohr, 1887–1951, a mathematician, taught (1915–30) at the College of Technology in Copenhagen and in 1930 became professor at the Univ. of Copenhagen. His most noted contribution to mathematics was his formulation of the theory of almost periodic functions.
..... Click the link for more information. (1913) and combined with the new quantum theory to provide the basic description of the atom still accepted today. In the course of his researches, Rutherford produced hydrogen by bombarding atoms of various elements, e.g., nitrogen, with helium nuclei (alpha rays); these results, published in 1919, were the first evidence of artificially produced splitting of atomic nuclei. In addition to his own work, he was known for his outstanding leadership in directing the research of others.

Rutherford was knighted in 1914 and elevated to the peerage in 1931. His works include Radioactive Transformations (1906), The Electrical Structure of Matter (1926), The Artificial Transmutation of the Elements (1933), and The Newer Alchemy (1937). His collected papers were compiled by Sir James Chadwick (3 vol., 1962–65).

Bibliography

See biographies by A. S. Eve (1939), E. N. da C. Andrade (1964, repr. 1990), D. Wilson (1983), and J. Campbell (1999); studies by M. Oliphant (1972), T. J. Trenn (1977) and W. R. Shea and M. A. Bunge, ed. (1979).