LORD RUTHERFORD

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 21 October 1937, Page 2

LORD RUTHERFORD

FAMOUS SCIENTIST DEAD. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received October 20, 1.5 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 19. The death is announced, following nn abdominal operation, of Lord Rutherford of Nelson, the famous New Zealand scientist. DISTINGUISHED CAREER. One o'f the greatest scientists in the world was Lord Rutherford, who was worthy to rank amongst the most distinguished British men of science, present or past—Newton, Darwin, and Faraday. What a long series of brilliant successes his career has been! New Zealand has, indeed, reason to be proud of him, for he was born at Nelson, South Island, in 1871. He quickly rose to eminence in his native land, achieving high honours in his University course, specialising in physics. In tho year 1895 he entered the larger sphere of English scientific circles, commencing at the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge, under the renowned Sir J. J. Thomson. First devoting his time to researches in electric waves and the velocity of ions in gases, he invented the form of electrical delector which bears his name. At the early age of 27 years, this famous scientist was appointed Professor of Physics at McGill University, Montreal, in 1898. This, in itself, was a notable achievement. He had already started the most important work of his early career, and one with which his name ever will be associated—the investigation of radioactivity. Carrying on an extensive series of researches into the nature of radioactive changes, he enunciated, in conjunction with the distinguished Professor Soddy, the theory of atomic disintegration, which ever since has remained the basis of the study of radioactive phenomena. This led to a now conception of the nature of the atom, and the complex structure which it possesses, so that a great advance was made towards the solution of the ultimate constitution of matter. Professor Ruliterford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 32, and four years later was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester. Here he gathered about him a band of devoted research students, and further investigations were carried out on the rays which radium compounds emit. Rutherford demonstrated that the atom consists of a positively charged nucleus, surrounded by a distribution of electrons comparatively far removed from it.

In the year 1919, he was appointed to Cambridge as Professor of Experimental Physics, 24 years after he had worked there as a student. Fifteen years before, lie had been awarded the Nobel prize, and in 1921 he was appointed to the time-honoured post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution. For his services in the cause of science he was knighted, and some years later he was elevated to the peerage. Lord Rutherford was believed to be the greatest experimenter since Faraday; at the time of his death he was devoting his labours to investigating tho problem of atomic energy. He had succeeded in producing actual transformation of the elements, and it is impossible to predict what great discoveries may come, of this. Needless to state, his students had boundless confidence in him, and it was said jocularly of him that he could arouse enthusiasm for science in anything short of a cow or a Cabinet Minister.