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Ernest Rutherford. By: Gloria Ngo Wilson Wong Simon Jinaphant Joseph Chu. Introduction. Born: August 30 th , 1871 in Brightwater, near Nelson, on South Island of New Zealand Famous Physicist Father: James Rutherford (a Scottish Wheelwright) Mother: Martha Thompson Rutherford
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Ernest Rutherford By: Gloria NgoWilson WongSimon JinaphantJoseph Chu
Introduction • Born: August 30th, 1871 in Brightwater, near Nelson, on South Island of New Zealand • Famous Physicist • Father: James Rutherford (a Scottish Wheelwright) • Mother: Martha Thompson Rutherford • Born in a family of 12 children as the fourth child and second son • Had 6 brothers and 5 sisters • Rutherford married Mary Newton in 1900 • Had 1 child named Eileen who married the physicist R.H. Fowler
Education and discoveries • Was a very good student excelling in sciences and mathematics in government schools • 1889 – Rutherford won a scholarship to study at Canterbury College • In his final years there, he concentrated on physics and mathematics • In last year there, he invented a sensitive radio-wave detector • – 6 years after Hertz had discovered radio waves • – the same year Marconi had began to use radio for practical purposes
Education and discoveries • then awarded a scholarship to study at Cambridge University with another famous physicist, J.J. Thomson • 1896– Rutherford and Thomson started to work together on conductivity of electricity in gases using x-rays • 1898 –Rutherford’s studies revealed that the radioactive emission from radioactivity discovered 2 years before consisted of at least two kinds of rays • – those less penetrating he called alpha rays • – the other he called beta rays • 2 years later he discovered a third even more penetrating kind, the gamma rays
discoveries • 1903 – with Frederick Soddy, the two of them concluded that radiation was caused by atoms of radioactive material that were breaking apart • – the “tiny bits” that were breaking apart were the alpha and beta rays • 1903 – the two of them also proposed that radioactive decay occurs by successive transformations • While process takes random amounts of time, it’s governed by average time in which half the atoms of sample would be expected to decay
discoveries • Rutherford designed set of experiments with T. Royds to examine alpha rays finding mass and charge were correct for helium nuclei • Experiment: placed a delicate glass bulb with radon gas that emitted off alpha particles in an evacuated tube • particles could then be analyzed since they wouldn’t be able to pass through glass of the tube • 1907 – became Langworthy Professor of Physics in University of Manchester • 1908 – Rutherford and assistant, Hans Geiger created alpha particle detector, a scintillation screen for observing alpha particles
The Gold Foil Experiment • 1909 – Rutherford gave his student, Ernest Marsden, task of studying if metal would be able to deflect path of an alpha particle • observed that one particle out of about 8000 particles bounced off a thin foil of gold, rather than passing through it like the rest • led to conclusion that atom’s mass must be concentrated in positively-charged nucleus while electrons are on outside space of atom • before this, it was assumed that atom was made up of positively charged sphere with negatively charged electrons moving around inside
Awards/Accolades • 1894 – Awarded 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship • 1908 – Nobel Prize for Chemistry • 1914 – Knighted • 1921 – Awarded the Order of Merit • 1922 – Awarded Copley Medal • 1925 – 1930 -- President of the Royal Society • 1931 – Titled “1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson”
Death • Cause: Complications of surgery • Died in 1937 – Buried at Westminister Abbey, London, England
