ERNEST RUTHERFORD

EARLY LIFE

• Born on August 30, 1871 in Spring Grove,New Zealand
• He was the fourth of twelve children, and he was the second son.
• Father: James Rutherford, a farmer from Scotland,had little education and struggled to support his large family.
• Mother: Martha Thompson, worked as a school teacher, she loved being apart of children's education.
• Family called him "Ern

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HOBBIES AT A YOUNG AGE

• after school, spent his time milking cows and helped work on the farm
• weekends, spent swimming in the creek with his brothers
• he discovered inventive ways to earn funds to help his family's financial challenges. Ex: birds-nesting to earn funds for kite-flying supplies.
• At age 10 he was handed his first science book, at Foxhill School and the book inspired him to create his first scientific experiment. He constructed a miniature cannon which actually exploded.

SOME ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• In 1887, he was awarded a scholarship to attend Nelson Collegiate School, a school where he would board and get to play rugby football until 1889.
• 1890, he received another scholarship to Canterbury College in Christchurch, New Zealand.
• he obtained both his Bachelor of Arts and his Master of Arts degrees there, and obtained first class honors in math and science.
• 1894, still at Canterbury, he conducted independent research on his ability of high-frequency electrical discharge to magnetize iron. A result in that he earned him a Bachelor of science degree.

OTHERS

• 1894, he also met a fell in love with his land lady's daughter, Mary Newton
• Married in 1900
• Later they welcomed a daughter, whom they named Eileen.

BECOMING SOMETHING

• 1902 Rutherford left Cambridge and took up a professorship at McGill University in Montreal.
• Frederick Soddy and him introduced their disintegration theory of radioactivity: which claimed "radioactive energy was admitted from within an atom and when the alpha and beta particles were emitted at the same time"
• Yale Professor Bertam Borden Boltwood and Rutherford went onto categorize radioactive elements "decay series"

"FATHER OF THE NUCLEAR AGE"

• 1907 returned to England, transferring to a professorship at the University of Manchester
• He made the groundbreaking discovery that nearly the total mass of an atom is concentrated in a nucleus.
• Because of that he gave birth to a nuclear model; a discovery that marked the inception of nuclear physics and paved the way to the invention of the atom bomb.
• he received the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1908

WORLD WAR 1

• he turned his attention to antis marine research.
• By 1919 he had made another monumental discovery; how to artificially induce a nuclear reaction in a stable element.
• Nuclear reactions were his main focus for his scientific career.
• he said he hoped scientists would not learn how to extract atomic energy until "man was living at peace with his neighbors".

DEATH

• October 19, 1937
• died in Cambridge, England at the age of 66
• died from the complications of a strangulated hernia.
• The discovery of nuclear fission was made after two years after he died.

-He would best fit with the Chemistry group at AHS.
-I feel like I would like Rutherford because he seemed like a very hardworking man, he started at nothing and then became something of himself.
-I chose him because of the way he carried himself and all his hard work to become the scientist he is.

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