SUPERMEN OF SCIENCE.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17436, 26 September 1928, Page 5

SUPERMEN OF SCIENCE.

SIR ERNEST RUTHERFORD.

NEW ZEALANDER TO THE FORE

AS A CANADIAN SEES HIM.

(Exclusive to “Thames Star.”) VANCOUVER, Sept, o

Accompanied by a striking sketch, a most interesting article has just appeared in the Montreal Daily Star, relative to a famous New Zealand scientist, Sir Ernest Rutherford, 0.M., F.R.S., who is described as one of the leading British super-inei>^f^seience } the man who mapped continents. The appreciation of Sir Ernest was from the pen of ‘Rhadamantlms” and was as follows: “ ‘See that- man across the dining room?' my Triend asked. ‘You mean the hearty farmer who’s enjoying, his breakfast so much?’ 1 replied. ‘Farmer!” lie cried witherlnglv. ‘Fanner nothing! That’s Sir Ernest Rutherford, who plays with atoms a deal more casually than you can play with billiard balls./

“1 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 tho 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—in his native New Zealand. He has all the qualities which make fanning pay. ‘‘Ho was horn at Nelson, New Zealand. 57 years ago, and educated at Nelson College amf v Ca if terburv College, Christchurch. His for science quickly showed itself; aikt he proceeded as a student to the ‘laboratories and lecture theatres of the University of New Zealand, where his unwearying perseverance and enormous intelligence won him a travelling scholarship. Tins In-ought him to England, to Cambridge, to the Cavendish Laboratory, a.nd to Sir J. J. (then Professor) Thomson. “Young Rutherford was utterly different from his frail nervously-organised professor. He had all the freedom of Colonial tradition; he was robust, fullblooded, almost boisterous. *■ Yet his complete absorption in the.problems of physical 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 gasses, Avork which wo it for him a and the coveted Coutts-TroYter scholarship. “In 1898 his ' Work at Cambridge ended, for he was .cchosen Macdonald. Professor of Physics at McGill University. Montreal. He remained in Canada for nine years, an admirable teacher and a greater investigator, until he was appointed Professor of Physics at Manchester.

“His position and environment in Lancashire proved extremely congenial and his tremendous discoveries fixed the eyes of the scientific world on his laboratory. Indeed, it is doubtful whether lie would ever have left his post there, had not-liis 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 contribution to science* demands a trained scientific mind. Speaking crudely, however, 1 should say. that he lias explored and charted the internal structure of the atom, that tiny unit from which ail matter is composed. The ‘Rutherford atom,’ which is unquestionably accepted to-day, is a minute solar system, in which satellite electrons revolve at enormous velocities round a stationary nucleus. The whole system is .bound together by strong electrical attractions.

Matter of Energy,

“Sir Ernest lias proved that what we regard as matter is in reality nothing more than particular condensations and arrangements of electrical charges. So he has wiped out the line which for centuries divided the physical universe 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 fellowworkers, from his senior assistant to the junior ‘lab-boy,’ who is privileged to empty his waste-paper basket, adore him. His smile is perennial, his kindly good humour inexhaustible. Other men may lose their tempers or their heads, or tlieir courage; Sir Ernest is the same yesterday, to-day and—apparently forever. He is the best of good fellows, an admirable after-dinner speaker, a witty controversalionist, a breezy lecturer, the confidant of his colleagues’ ambitions, the arbiter of tlieir jealousies, the composer of their quarrels. You meet him at his liest in a college common room, after the- port has circulated once or twice. His jovial relaxation, his transparent relish of 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 oijly affection. 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 are 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 a delightful sham. This is not. the real Sir Ernest Rutherford at all; this is only his least important self, playing at life.

In World of His Own

“The real man leads the secret life of a lonely poet—lonely because his constructive imagination, perhaps the most powerful of 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 bucolic looking skull

has few peers and no superior. “Very occasionally you can catcli a ;||| glimpse of the real Ernest Rutherford. Come upon him when he least expects b' you, and before he can summon his charming geniality to his aid ,you will 5 see an austere-eyed man, his face '7s shadowed by a brooding melancholy. " *

“Alone lie must dream his dreams; ?v;| alone he is driven by his compelling- 7# instinct for truth to piece the evidence lie has collected, in an at- v tempt to prolie the ultimate truths of •;< Nature’s phenomena. In the moment ----A before he smiles, you have caught an - ;f 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 ,7b owner happy. Disregarding the spiritual solitude they enforce on him, b|j§ they convince him of the vanity of.'b|p most human actions, the- futility of most human desires. The deeper lie ' peers into the heart, of things, the more ‘.77 he perceives the 'peevish restlessness S: of the world of men and women, and the little motives which actuate even its most spectacular events. Sir Ernest Rutherford. T believe, would have been happier had lie been stupider.’’