LORD RUTHERFORD

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4233, 19 January 1940, Page 6

LORD RUTHERFORD

NEW ZEALAND’S GREATEST SON. HIS WONDERFUL WORK. Ernest Rutherford Lord Rutherford, of Nelson—was New Zealand’s greatest son. In his field of labour—physics—he was one of the greatest men of this century; one of the greatest the world has ever known. Simply, .without heroics (the man in his lifetime disliked display and ostentation), Dr A. S. Eve has told in “Rutherford” the story of this man’s life and work. An authorised biography, this work makes the greatest possible use of actual records left behind by Lord Rutherford, and carefully kept by his wife. Dr Eve was a colleague of his subject, and held the chair of physics at the McGill University, Montreal, which was the first chair held by ’Rutherford, to whose private memoranda and correspondence he has had full access. He decided that the only way to write Rutherford’s life was “to hold up a mirror in which he may reveal himself, just as he was in lectures, books, papers, speeches, portraits, letters and casual talk.” Largely, then, the story is told in Rutherford’s own words, and through his own actions as lecturer, experimenter in wireless and radiation, discoverer

in the field of radio activity, diligent researcher, painstaking author and man. Earl Baldwin gives a picture of the man in an introduction to Dr Eve’s biography (published by the Cambridge University Press). “The world knew Lord Kutherford as a man of science,” says Earl Baldwin, “knew —perhaps, without fully appreciating its significance of his work on nuclear physics; it was my privilege to know him as a man. Others, therefore may write of the unique part he played in the rapid advancement of the frontiers of knowledge which has been so striking a feature of this century and of the unfailing source of inspiration which his collaborators and pupils found in him. I write of him with the memory of his ever fresh and boyishly eager personality, of his patient kindliness and of his almost uncanny gift of singling out from a mass of confusing detail the one significant fact.”

This is a book that deals with facts in a hard, solid way. It contains no dramatics, it embroiders not at all. Yet it is full of drama—the drama of discovery in a field yet hardly explored, the drama of capturing the exact measurement of radium, the strength of radio activity measured by the scientist so that it may be applied effectively in the field of curative medicine. It is a worthy companion to the life story of Madame Curie, with the difference that Rutherford fought successfully almost from the beginning in a field that had captured the imagination of the scientific world, whilst Madame Curie and her husband had to labour in a more restricted way without applause in the beginning, and had to suffer hardship and poverty before they achieved

success- Rutherford was nearly alway successful, rarely disappointed. THAT. “HEARTY FARMER.” Most people on meeting Rutherford for the first time thought he was a farmer; he was bluff, hearty, so physically robust, so stolid in appearance. Dr Eve reproduces a London newspaper story dealing with this theme: “See that man across the diningroom?” 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 billiard balls.” 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. ' Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, at Brightwater (then Spring Grove), near Nelson, New Zealand. His father earned a living as a wheelwright, by small-scale farming and by bridge building and contracting. The mother valued education, could play the piano, was thrifty and hard working. Later his father set up a flax mill, where he prepared the native flax growing in the swamps. He also erected a saw mill; power for both mills was provided by a water wheel of his design. Young Rutherford had a normal boyhood; helping with the farm chores in his leisure time. At Nelson College, to which he won his way with scholarship, he came largely under the influence of Dr W. S. Littlejohn, later principal of the college, and better known to us as principal of Scotch College. A school fellow of Rutherford “well remembers his habit of strolling about with;

Littlejohn on the half holiday, up and down little frequented streets near the college, Littlejohn drawing diagrams in the dust and discussing them with Rutherford ... he was practically taken alone in physics and chemistry by Littlejohn.” Amongst boyhood and youthful hobbies were photograpliy with a home-made camera, taking clocks to pieces, making models of water wheels. He was fond of music, liked to sing; reading was his great recreation, and he loved throughout his life all forflis of literature. Entering the University of New Zealand in 1889, he graduated in science five years later. His thesis was a large section of research work on the magnetisation of iron by high frequency discharges. At this time he began to develop a magnetic detector by which he could detect wireless waves passing through a distance of 60 feet, through opaque obstacles. In this field he was a pioneer, and it was on the success of these experiments that his first fame rested. It was no easy time for the young student; he coached students so that he might meet the expenses above the value of his scholarship; he also helped with the farm Work in- vacations.

When he won a scholarship to Cambridge, Rutherford had to borrow the passage money. At the Cavendish Laboratory he immediately began further research with his detector; at first demonstrators used to pass his door with a snigger; his detector was new and a puzzle to them; they refused to believe that anything good could come out of the colonies. But his fame spread quickly amongst the younger men, one of whom wrote of him, “We’ve got a rabbit here from the Antipodes, and he’s burrowing mighty deep.” His early letters from Cambridge to his mother and his fiancee (she later became his devoted wife), are full of his work on the detector of electric waves and of the neuralgia he suffered in damp England. WORKING ALONE. Early this century he was appointed to the Chair of Physics at McGill University, Montreal. Here he did some of his most famous researches. “These early days at McGill,” says Dr Eve, “were perhaps the most remarkable of Rutherford’s life. Here was a young man working, at first, all alone, and almost the only help he got was to be told that he was Wrong.” Within two years, though, he had become “the clearing house for all discoveries in radio-activity, and letters reached him from professors and resea/ch students from many parts of the world. He influenced their work, and his mind reacted to their discoveries and ideas.” His first book, published in 1903, brought him world fame. From McGill, Rutherford went to the Manchester University in 1907. Here his first successful work was the detection of a single atom. The following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which caused him to comment: “I must confess it was very unexpected, and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.” This was only the first of many honours that were showered on Rutherford in his lifetime. Dr Eve reveals that Rutherford never patented any of his discoveries or inventions; he never made any money from them, nor did he seek to make any. When in 1910 a British radio and telegraph company asked that he serve as an expert witness with reference to his magnetic detector, which Marconi had Improved, he declined, stating that his published papers gave a clear statement of the position. The lawyer who consulted Rutherford reported to the company: “He has never exploited any of his scientific work for commercial purposes, oi’ with a view to patenting and thereby securing for himself alone the benefit of such, research; he fully and freely publishes the results of all his scientific work, and therefore his research possesses the greater value, inasmuch as it is not done behind closed doors, but is done with a view to the world’s knowledge.” Rutherford was knighted in 1914. During the war period he did a great deal of useful work in anti-submarine measures, in particular with diaphragms for hydrophones used in submarine detection work. In 1919 he was appointed to the Cavendish chair, following Sir J. J. Thomson. In 1931 he was created Lord Rutherford of Nelson. Six years later he died. Dr Eve gives several appreciations, from personal knowledge, of his work as lecturer and experimenter, and as a man.

As lecturer: “When Rutherford spoke or lectured he was, at the start, nervous, largely because he was anxious about a troublesome throat, but when he warmed to his work, particularly on his favourite topics, he was carried away with his subject, and he used simple- and direct English, clear and forceful. His Writing was devoid of frills, and combined clarity with power. He found fault with those willing to bestow months on an investigation and yet grudging hours for the publication. In a recent speech Lord Tweedsmuir has recalled a remark made to him by Rut-ierf >rd that he did not consider a discovery complete until it had been described in simple and correct English.” STRONG PERSONALITY. As man: “He was a man who loved children, and children at once loved him. Young people stood in some little awe of him, which thawed like hoar frost in the morning sun. He was essentially sociable. Those who sat near him at dinner were fortunate, and they knew it. He might

set the table in a roar, and certainly he would knit the party together. He could get work out of the laziest. He had high courage in a fight, but he saw more wisdom in tact. He hated shamis and an affected superiority. He was not particular about minor points —whether of dress, speech, manners or customs. Like the law, he was not unmindful of trifles. He set great store on earnest and thorough work. He grasped the essentials of a matter and insisted on them. ... He would repeat and vary an experiment until he Was certain. made few mistakes; but we must feel thankful that he made some. After making them, he cheerfully ignored them. He knew how to follow the main scent and how 1 to hunt hares. His laboratory was not an institution, but a company of devotees with high ambitions and resolve. He was proud of this company and their fame. There was very little secrecy, and still less grasping for priority. There was often wild enthusiasm for some achievement beyond hope or belief.”

And his work: “He discovered the magnetic detector of wireless waves and began what Marconi completed. With Sir J. J. Thomson he determined the simple laws of the carriers (ions) of electricity in a gas, when radiated either by X-rays or ultra violet light. He discovered and named the alpha and beta rays from muranium. At McGill he found thorium emanation—the first known radio-active gas. He discovered, with Soddy, that radioelements break up when they eject part of their atoms with considerable violence and that the residues form a new element. ... In his Bakerian lecture he described and gave the laws that he found concerning a whole chain of eight radio-active changes, beginning with radium. He deflected alpha particles with electric and magnetic forces to a measured extent and calculated their speed, energy, mass and electric charge per unit mass. .... AU his life he played not with atoms, but mainly with the nuclei of atoms; radio-activity was systematised, the nucleus discovered and transmutation achieved. . . . Rutherford was the Newton of the atom, dealing with the disintegration and the building of atoms. He was the king of the microcosm, leading an army to ever fresh conquests. The harvest of his work has not yet been fully revealed.” With his death a great epoch in science came to an end. Dr Eve’s book preserves faithfully the memory of the man who led the achievements of that epoch.