Sir E Rutherford

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 1, 5 December 1928, Page 2

Sir E Rutherford

An Appreciation The New Zealand Scientist “Rhadamanthus,” writing on “Supermen ot Science” in the Weekly Irish Times, writes as follows of Sir Ernest Rutherford The man who mapped new scientific continents.” . “See that man across the din-ing-room ?” asked my friend. “You mean the hearty farmer who’s enjoying his breakfast so much?” I replied. “Farmer?” he cried witheringly. “Farmer—nothing ! That’s Sir Ernest Rutherford, who plays with atoms, a deal more casually than you can play with billiardballs.”

I looked at the man again, unconvinced. His healthy colour, blunt features, shrewd eyes, heavy limbs, and even his easy tweeds, with their baggy pockets all seemed aggressively agricultural. The broad voice in which he asked a waiter for marmalade was exactly in the picture. I was only finally assured of his identity when I heard the hotel porter call him “Sir Ernest.” If, however, Sir Ernest Rutherford had not been endowed with a passion for scientific research, nothing is more likely than that he would have become a farmer a business-like and successful farmer —in his native New Zealand. He has all the qualities which make farming pay. He was born at Nelson, New Zealand, fifty-seven years ago, and educated at Nelson College and Canterbury College, Christchurch. His bent for science, quickly showed itself, and he proceeded as a student to the laboratories and lecture-theatres Lof the University of New Zealand, where his unwearying perand enormous intelliBk c won him a travelling scholT his brought him to to Cambridge, to the lllr 1; 11 ’ :1: ■■ ■ and l!|k V ip I]§!F' j n the problems ■ oi research, and his outstanding ability, quickly made him J J Thomson’s favourite pupil. Under him, Rutherford accomplished his first independent work on the conduction of electricity through gases; work which won for him a research degree and the coveted CouttsTrotter scholarship. . ADMIRABLE TEACHER In 1898 his work at Cambridge ended, for he was chosen MacDonald Professor of Physics at University, Montreal. He rerm&ned in Canada for nine years, alfiL admirable teacher and a greaterv investigator, until he was appointed Professor of Physics at Manchester. His positioikand environment in Lancashire prpved extremely V congenial, and ttis tremendous f discoveries fixed the eyes of the scientific world on his laboratory. Indeed it is doubtful whether he would even have left his post there had not his old Professor Sir J J Thomson resigned and bequeathed his chair and the care of his beloved Cavendish Laboratory to his favourite pupil. Sir Ernest returned to Cambridge as Cavendish Professor in 1919, and has added to the lustre with which his predecessors surrounded the position he occupies. A full understanding of his i; to science demands scientific mind. Spea-

king crudely, however, I should say that he has explored and charted the internal structure of the atom, that tiny unit from which all matter is composed. The “Rutherford atom,” which is unquestionably accepted to-day, is a minute solar system, in which satellite “electroms” revolve at enormous velocities round a stationary nucleus. The whole system is bound together by strong electrical attractions. Sir Ernest has proved that what we regard as matter is, in reality nothing more than particular condensations and arrangements ot electrical charges. So he has wiped out the line which for centuries divided the physical univiverse into “matter” and “energy” contrasted conceptions which could not be converted into, or expressed in, terms of one another.

Sir Ernest wears the laurels of his vast discoveries lightly. His fellow-workers, from his senior assistant to the "lab-boy,” who is privileged to empty his wastepaper basket, adore him. His smile is perennial, his kindly good humour inexhaustible. Other men may lose their tempers or their heads or their courage, Sir Ernest is the same yesterday, to-day, and, apparently, for ever. BEST OF GOOD FELLOWS He is the best of good fellows, an admirable-after-dinner speaker, a witty centroversialisf, a breezy lecturer, the confidant of his colleagues’ ambitions, the arbiter of their zealousies, the composer of their quarrels. You meet him at his best in a college common room. His jovial relaxation, his transparent relish in his own jokes are a joy to behold. His great voice booms across the room, cutting through the hyper-cultivated tones of his companions. It has been whispered that his colonial accent is Sir Ernest’s only affectation. Some are bold enough to declare that he cultivates it, that he has been surprised breaking into the ordinary dialect of professors, and then hurriedly correcting himself.

You aie entranced by this merry creature. Look at him once more ; his face is wreathed in smiles, his pipe is drawing famously.

Alas ! All you see is delightful sham. That is not the real Sir Ernest Rutherford at all : this is only his least important self playing at life. The real man leads the secret life of a lonely poet—lonely because his constructive imagination, perhaps the most powerful ot the age, debars him from sharing his thoughts. He moves in a world of his own, where he can walk with no companions, because none but he possesses the key which unlocks its door.

Those large, seemingly-clumsy hands are more skilful to manipulate delicate apparatus than any other pair in the world. Similarly, the brain inside that bucolislooking skull has few peers and no fellow. BROODING MELANCHOLY Very occasionally you can catch a glimpse of the real Ernest Rutherford. Come upon him when he least expects you, and before he can summon his charming geniality to his aid you will see an austere-eyed man, his face shadowed by a brooding melancholy.

Alone he must dream his dreams; alone he is driven by his compelling instinct for truth to piece together the evidence he has collected in an attempt to probe the ultimate truths of nature’s phenomena. In

the moment before he smiles you have caught an idea of the awful loneliness in which the scientist of genius is compelled to work without hope of release. Transcendant intellectual gifts such as Sir Ernest’s, do not, I fancy, make their owner happy. Disregarding the spiritual solitude they enforce on him, they convince him of the vanity of most human desires. The deeper he peers into the heart ot things the more he perceives the peevish restlessness of the world of men and women, and the little motives which actuate even its most spectacular events. Sir Ernest Ruthford, I believe would have been happier had he been a farmer.