LORD RUTHERFORD EXPLORES THE ATOM

Evening Star, Issue 22327, 1 May 1936, Page 1

LORD RUTHERFORD EXPLORES THE ATOM

A BUILDER OF TO-MORROW CAY 3 AT CAMBRIDGE Lord Rutherford looks like a peer—large, big-boned, bis heavy grey moustache, thinning hair, twinkling wideopen eyes, ruddy out-door complexion, and easy, rather old-fashioned clothes, put you in mind of a county grandee, up from tho West, writes H. AVyndham Boyco in the ‘ Cape Times.’ Ho has an air of natural authority and dignity which are best shown off by the scarlet benches of the House of Lords. When he goes there to make one of his rare speeches on scientific matters lie commands instant attentive respect, which is the rightful due to an aristocrat of learning, the greatest experimental scientist now alive on the earth. He speaks, too, in a rich easy country sort of voice. When you hear him, you are puzzled to place the very individual burr which infects all he says. It seems a peculiar Rutherford manner of speaking; you cannot assign it to any particular part of Britain. Actually you can soon understand why Lord Rutherford talks like that when you remember whence he came to fill the Cavendish Professorship of Experimental Physics at Cambridge. Born in 1871 in New Zealand (at Nelson. which place ho lias incorporated in Ids title, he wears his years very lightjy and vigorously. He has no time to worry about such little things as growing old. He is too much absorbed with “ To-morrow.” He has been hankering after “ Tomorrow ” through forty long years now. Ever since ho first "came to Cambridge from New Zealand as a student some time in the nineties, he has been probing into the “ works ” of atoms, trying to find out what goes on inside them. Little by little he has made the atom yield up some of its secrets to him. Alauy, however, remain, and Lord Rutherford is working away at his self-appointed task just as eagerly and systematically at sixty-four as bo was at twenty-four. EXPLAINING THE ATOAJ. j He is partial to explaining what atoms are like to non-scientmc persons like you and me. He always uses tnc same similes: ‘' if l were to enlarge an orange to the size of the world, tue atoms m the original orange would each appear about as big as an orange. If an tho 1,000,090,0 DD odd inhabitants of the world were to count for twenty-four hours a. day at a steady rate of 100 a minute, without pause or hindrance, it would take them over 100 years to count a thimbleful of atoms.” All matter is composed of atoms of one kind or another. And so Lord Rutherford’s researches lead him down to tho roots of all material objects. You cannot imagine any body or substance more simple and elementary than Lord Rutherxord’s atoms. Why does it ma'ler what he does about them- 1 AVliy should ho be claimed as one ol the Men who are making Jo-morrow?.His work docs not seem to lead anywhere practical, does it? So speaks the voice of doubt, unduethat Lord Rutherford has failed to'l'nd inside his atoms what popular M-icncc said ho would. AVc were always told that, once tho “ atom ” was ‘‘ split,” the energy released from its inside would either detonate all other atoms and transform the world into a white hot mass of incandescent gas ; or, at any rate, drive all the machinery on earth bv atomic energy. Lord Rutherford split bis first atom in 1019. Since then lie has been repeating tho performance somewhat nonchalantly ou most days. So far no one Ims been hurt. Tim‘atom, when split, seems completely “ useless.” TREAIENDOUSLY IMPORTANT. But that doesn't mean that Lord | Rutherford’s work has been in vain, or is not tremendously important. It is. It has changed our whole outlook on the nature of matter, am. may yet have practical consequences of the "greatest benefit to mankind. Indirectly, too, his work lias saved millions of pounds to industrialists. To catalogue the discoveries that have been made by Lord Rutherford and his co-workcrs would require more space than this article permits and would be a repetition of much that is known. “ Soon we will know the basis of everything—excepting life—of the earth, the sky, the sea, the animals, and of our own bodies,” repeats Lord Rutherford, his eyes .shining as he | describes the work of his Cavendish Laboratory. The operative word here is ‘‘ we.” Lord Rutherford always speaks of what “wc ” are going to do. By ‘‘ wo ” he means himself and his young men. Lord Rutherford's “ Young A!c:i ” arc the most wonderful part of bis wonderful work. Not so “ young ” now, some of them, they arc the baud of cientists who collaborate about atoms at Cambridge. Ever since be started bis researches there Lord Rutherford began building up a tradition of highly-skilled assistants. There are Air Blackett and Dr Occbialini.