THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1937 LORD RUTHERFORD OF NELSON

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22865, 21 October 1937, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1937 LORD RUTHERFORD OF NELSON

The hand of death, after beckoning away Baron Rutherford of Nelson, has laid the name of New Zealand upon a myriad lips. This land gave him birth and the beginnings of his deep interest and great work in scientific research. Foremost of our sons, winning an eminence acknowledged with gratitude throughout the world of thought, he conferred a lasting lustre on this little country far from all the old seats of learning and set it memorably honoured in their midst. Having to choose a title for the peerage bestowed in token of his worth as explorer in the dim realms of matter, where his quests went conqueringly beyond the limits reached before his time, he took one in simple remembrance of his earliest home and earliest eagerness to understand the things of earth. That choice was like him. But long before its making was so honouringly thrust upon him those ancient centres of distinguished study had vied with each other in tributes to his genius. To them he had borne a fresh impetus, devoting himself zealously to pursuits in which their success had opened a way he was conspicuously gifted to extend. Inspired and taught by their achievements, he took them new inspiration and an earnestness of teaching that richly paid the debt he owed. This full recompense they could neither undervalue nor forget. So they showered rewards upon him. But ever his heart cherished the scene of his first impulses to seek knowledge, and in the hour of his unexampled distinction as a New Zealand peer of the realm he chose to be called by a name speaking most intimately of that attachment. To-day the people of this land, touched by reverent sorrow at his passing, are proud to acclaim him theirs, even as he proudly elected to bear an appellation linking them with his renown.

Lord Rutherford was—the word that sounds a knell is difficult to write and read—no ordinary man. The tale of his career narrates convincingly a rapid ascent of brilliant heights. .There were pauses in the progress of declared results of his research, as befits the work of a scientist wisely patient in tasks calling for care lest he announce as certain any finding not thoroughly established and consequently intervals elapsed between the honours conferred upon him. All the time, however, he was sedulously absorbed in his path-finding activity. It is recorded that a college servant at Manchester once explained "You can never tell when he'll leave his 'lab.' and go home." The simple words tell much—more, indeed, than many an attempt to estimate the zest with which every investigation was undertaken. For those so inclined, and in this scientific age their name is legion, there is available in many languages a detailed account of the discoveries that his initiative and inventiveness in laboratory experiment made possible. Others, unskilled to grasp the subtleties of physics and apt to confuse a molecule with a microbe, can nevertheless realise that he wrested from the material universe many of its most obstinate secrets; they know Rutherford as "the man that split the atom," even if they cannot appreciate the revelation of its electrical nature and the presence of a nucleus consisting of a heavy, positively charged central part surrounded by an atmosphere of negative electrons rotating in orbits. They can share with the rest a wondering admiration of his prowess in fact-finding beneath the familiar surface of things, and undeterred by reminders that abstruse mathematics must be used to prove important deductions can join in the praise that academic degrees and society presidencies and national distinctions utter in impressive fashion. They can be easily bewildered by formulae, but they are sure that this famous New Zealander is worthy of a lofty place among the world's leading scientists. One other thing they can and do treat as incontestable about Lord Rutherford's work: if the plain man be precluded from understanding its complexities, there is bound to be some very practical outcome of it all. Did he not so enlarge the bounds of knowledge about radioactivity that the wonders of "\jireless" came nearer to common enjoyment? By the exploits of pure science those of applied science multiply, in the service of life, and even to push back a little further the veil over Nature is to fulfil a wholesome human instinct. And all can in this day of remembrance of a great man's labours nobly done recall how delightfully human he himself was. He bore all that weight of learning lightly as a flower. One of the hardest of workers, he was full of fun ; his lectures had their technical details relieved by bright glints of humour; he was joyous as well as profound. One other recollection: to his mother, on the proudest day of all, he telegraphed—"Now Lord Rutherford. Honour more yours than mine. Love. Ernest." There spoke a man New Zealanders are deeply glad to know their country gave to the world.