Summary:
A short biography of Lord Ernest Rutherford, the New Zealand physicist who split the atom and proved that each atom had different components.
Lord Ernest Rutherford
Rutherfords life:
Ernest Rutherford was born in 1871. He was the second son in in his family and the fourth of 12 children. He was born in Spring Grove, (now known as Brightwater) Havlock, New Zealand. He attended public schools during his life. For 5 of those years he went to Nelson College and during his last year he was Head boy, Dux and a forward in the 1st XV rugby team. His father was a flaxmiller and wheelwright. After college Ernest got a scholarship to Canturbury University where he majored in mathematics and physics. He then stayed for an extra year teaching and studying. One of his main studies was on the properties of iron in high frequency magnetic fields. He then moved to England to work with J.J. Thompson at the Cavendish Laboratory where he worked on electromagnet waves.
In 1989 Ernest who was aged twenty seven then moved to Canada to head the physics department at McGill University. Where he worked on subatomic physics (the study of atoms.) He then moved back to England to accept a chair at the University of Manchester. Here he continued work on various forms of radiation and also worked with Hans Geiger.
Finally after years of study Ernest was finally starting to understand the structure of the atom and believed that the atom was made up of different parts meaning that the popular belief of the atom being the smallest thing in the universe was not true. In 1908 he received a Nobel prize for his investigation into the disentergration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances. Many people were surised the Ernest Rutherford had received a prize for chemistry rather than physics which he was better at.
In 1917 Ernest Rutherford split the atom making a small nuclear reaction.
Ernest Rutherford received many more prizes other than the Nobel during his years including the Rumford medal-1905, the Copley medal-1922, the Bressa prize-1910, Albert medal 1928, the Faraday medal-1930. He was also knighted in 1914 and then made a lord of the realm in 1931 eight days after his only daughter died.
Rutherford's greatest acheivements:
Rutherford's greatest acievement was when he proved that there were parts of the atoms as without this today there would be no nuclear physics and his model of the atom is still what is used today. His other great acheivment was actually splitting the atom. Of course this may have ended up causing more harm than good because of nuclear bombs and weapons but it has still helped the world in many different ways.
This is the complete article, containing 426 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
