DEATH OF GREAT SCIENTIST

Southland Times, Issue 23336, 21 October 1937, Page 5

DEATH OF GREAT SCIENTIST

Lord Rutherford Of Nelson WORLD-FAMOUS NEW ZEALANDER (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) LONDON, October 19. Lord Rutherford of Nelson, whose discoveries in radioactivity and electrical conduction made him world famous, died today after an abdominal operation. He was 66 years old. Lord Rutherford was a New Zealander by birth and education. He was born at Spring Grove, now known as Brightwater, Nelson, in August 1871. When he was only five years old his family moved from Spring Grove to Foxhill, Nelson, and a few years later made a further move, this time to Havelock, Marlborough. At the Havelock school he won a scholarship which enabled him to attend College as a boarder. In 1889 he won a junior university scholarship, which permitted him to transfer his studies to Canterbury College, starting him upon a scientific career. In four years spent at Canterbury College he attained.the highest academic honours possible there, obtain-

ing his master of arts degree with double first-class honours in mathematics and physics. As a reward for his achievements, the University Council awarded him the 1851 Exhibition Scholarship, and so, early in 1895, he proceeded to England to study science at Cambridge and to build up a reputation as a scientist which is second to none in the world today. He was knighted in 1914 and raised to the peerage in 1931. Thirty-five years have passed since Lord Rutherford received a Nobel Prize. On December 10, 1902, he received the prize, not for physics, as might generally have been expected, but for chemistry. The award was for his researches on radioactivity, and at that time many regarded the study of radioactivity as belonging to chemistry. ORIGINALITY OF IDEAS The phenomenon of radioactivity presented great psychological difficulties to the early investigators. Perhaps Lord Rutherford’s greatest contribution to the first period of radioactive research was free thinking on novel facts. But this quality was only a part of his contribution; he combined it with an astonishing power of work. Students of physics who have read the sequence cf papers Lord Rutherford published between 1896 and 1907 must often have wondered how such a multitude of experiments could have been done in the time. Seven years after the discovery of radioactivity he was able to give, in conjunction with Soddy, the theory of spontaneous atomic disintegration which provided the complete interpretation of the known facts and the basis for all subsequent research. The first period of Lord Rutherford’s career closed with his departure from Montreal for Manchester in 1907 and his reception of the Nobel Prize in 1908. He was then 37 years old, and had completed what might legitimately have been regarded as a life work. The second period of his career was spent in Manchester between 1907 and 1919. This proved even greater than the first. While at Manchester he worked qut the nuclear theory of the atom. Once more his conceptual originality was decisive, for he had to adopt a model for the atom which could not work according to accepted mechanical principles. He proved experimentally that the atom must be a roomy structure in which nearly all of the mass was concentrated in a tiny central nucleus. This was the key to what is named atomic physics. DANISH COLLEAGUE By this time Lord Rutherford had attracted research students from many lands. Among them was Moseley, who discovered that the number of elements must be limited. He was killed in the war at the age of 28. But, most remarkable of all, there was Niels Bohr. The student of the history of science reflects with never-ending excitement on the destiny that brought together in Manchester the master experimenter from New Zealand and the theoretical genius from Denmark. In 1914 Manchester University had Lord Rutherford as professor and Bohr as lecturer in physics. Lord Rutherford had provided the model for the atom, and Bohr gave the mechanics by which it could work. Armed with the Rutherford-Bohr conception of the atom, physicists started a campaign, which still advances with unabated triumph, on the investigation of matter. The third period of Lord Rutherford’s career began as Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge in 1919. In 1919 he announced i.iat he had accomplished the first artificial disintegration of an atom. He was the first to arrange the transmutation of an element. After this he began a detailed study of the structure of the atomic nucleus. For a number of years new knowledge was accumulated without any striking discovery. The fire seemed to have settled a little. Then in 1932 came the announcement from the Cavendish Laboratory of the discovery of the neutron by Chadwick. A few weeks later Cockcroft and Walton announced the first disintegration of an atom by a machine of human construction, and a few months later Blackett announced that he had definitely confirmed the discovery of the positive election by Anderson of Pasadena. The third period of Lord Rutherford's work proved the equal of the first and of the second. INSPIRATION TO NEW ZEALANDERS MR SAVAGE EXPRESSES DOMINION’S REGRET (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, October 20. “I feel sure that all the people of New Zealand will join me in expressing regret at the death of Lord Rutherford of Nelson,” said the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) in a statement issued today. “He was foremost among New Zealand scholars and was not the least of the world’s leading scientists. “It would be foolish of me, as it also would be for many others, to pretend any claim to knowledge of the science in which this distinguished New Zealander won fame for himself and for his country. We knew him first as Ernest Rutherford, and watched his wonderful career overseas with interest and proud appreciation. The whole world of science and scholarship came to admire him as Lord Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand, a brilliant professor of physics at Cambridge University and a master of research in radioactivity. Many British and foreign universities honoured him with distinctive degrees, and the British nation, through its King, conferred its highest honour, the Order of Merit. “These rewards are not given lightly in the exacting sphere in which the late

Lord Rutherford won great prominence, and we all can be sure that he deserved them. His life and work should be an inspiration to New Zealanders in their quest for the best in scholarship and science. The people of New Zealand will cherish his memory and the fine record of his achievements.”