Ernest Rutherford (photo posted later in the article), Baron Rutherford of Nelson and Cambridge (born 08/30/1871 in Spring Grove, New Zealand - died 10/19/1937 in Cambridge, England) is a British physicist originally from New Zealand, who is considered the greatest experimenter since the time of Michael Faraday (1791-1867). He was a central figure in the field of radioactivity, and his concept of the structure of the atom dominated nuclear physics. He won the Nobel Prize in 1908, was President of the Royal Society (1925-1930) and the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1923). In 1925 he was admitted to the Order of Merit and in 1931 was awarded a peerage, received the title of Lord Nelson.

Ernest Rutherford: a short biography in the early years of life

Ernest's father James in the middle of the 19th century moved from Scotland as a child to New Zealand, only recently settled by Europeans, where he was engaged in agriculture. Rutherford's mother - Martha Thompson - came from England as a teenager and worked as a school teacher until she married and had ten children, of which Ernest was the fourth (and second son).

Ernest attended free public schools until 1886 when he won a scholarship to Nelson's private high school. The gifted student excelled in almost every subject, but especially in mathematics. Another scholarship helped Rutherford to enroll in 1890 at Canterbury College, one of the four campuses of the University of New Zealand. It was a small institution with only eight teachers and less than 300 students. The young talent was lucky to have excellent teachers who kindled in him an interest in scientific research, supported by reliable evidence.

Upon completion of a three-year course of study, Ernest Rutherford became a bachelor and won a scholarship for a year of postgraduate study at Canterbury. Completing it at the end of 1893, he received the degree of Master of Arts - the first advanced degree in physics, mathematics and mathematical physics. He was asked to stay for another year in Christchurch to conduct independent experiments. Rutherford's research into the ability of a high-frequency electrical discharge, such as that from a capacitor, to magnetize iron in late 1894 earned him a Bachelor of Science degree. During this period he fell in love with Mary Newton, the daughter of the woman in whose house he settled. They married in 1900. In 1895, Rutherford received a scholarship named after the World Exhibition of 1851 in London. He decided to continue his research at the Cavendish Laboratory, which J. J. Thomson, Europe's leading expert on electromagnetic radiation, took charge of in 1884.

Cambridge

In recognition of the growing importance of science, the University of Cambridge has changed its rules to allow graduates from other universities to complete a degree after two years of study and the completion of acceptable research work. Rutherford was the first research student. Ernest, in addition to demonstrating magnetization by an oscillatory discharge of iron, found that the needle loses part of its magnetization in a magnetic field created by an alternating current. This made it possible to create a detector of newly discovered electromagnetic waves. In 1864, the Scottish theoretical physicist James Clerk Maxwell predicted their existence, and in 1885-1889. German physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered them in his laboratory. Rutherford's device for detecting radio waves was simpler and had commercial potential. The next year, the young scientist spent at the Cavendish Laboratory, increasing the range and sensitivity of the instrument, which could receive signals at a distance of half a mile. However, Rutherford lacked the intercontinental vision and entrepreneurial skills of Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who invented the wireless telegraph in 1896.

Ionization research

Without abandoning his old passion for alpha particles, Rutherford studied their slight scattering after interaction with the foil. Geiger joined him and they got more meaningful data. In 1909, when undergraduate student Ernest Marsden was looking for a topic for his research project, Ernest suggested that he study large scattering angles. Marsden discovered that a small number of α-particles deviated more than 90° from their original direction, leading Rutherford to exclaim that this was almost as improbable as if a 15-inch projectile fired at a sheet of tissue paper bounced back and hit the shooter.

Atom Model

Reflecting on how such a heavy charged particle can be deflected by electrostatic attraction or repulsion through such a large angle, Rutherford concluded in 1944 that an atom cannot be a homogeneous solid. In his opinion, it consisted mainly of empty space and a tiny core in which all its mass is concentrated. Rutherford Ernest confirmed the model of the atom with numerous experimental evidence. It was his greatest scientific contribution, but little attention was paid to it outside of Manchester. In 1913, however, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr showed the importance of this discovery. A year earlier he had visited Rutherford's laboratory and returned as a faculty member in 1914-1916. Radioactivity, he explained, resides in the nucleus, while the chemical properties are determined by orbiting electrons. Bohr's model of the atom gave rise to a new concept of quanta (or discrete values ​​of energy) in the electrodynamics of orbits, and he explained spectral lines as the release or absorption of energy by electrons as they move from one orbit to another. Henry Moseley, another of Rutherford's many students, similarly explained the sequence of the X-ray spectrum of the elements by the nuclear charge. Thus a new coherent picture of the physics of the atom was developed.

Submarines and nuclear reaction

The First World War devastated the laboratory run by Ernest Rutherford. Interesting facts from the life of a physicist during this period relate to his participation in the development of anti-submarine weapons, as well as membership in the Admiralty Council for Inventions and Scientific Research. When he found time to return to his previous scientific work, he turned to studying the collision of alpha particles with gases. In the case of hydrogen, as expected, the detector recorded the formation of individual protons. But protons also appeared during the bombardment of nitrogen atoms. In 1919, Ernest Rutherford added another discovery to his discoveries: he managed to artificially provoke a nuclear reaction in a stable element.

Return to Cambridge

Nuclear reactions occupied the scientist throughout his career, which took place again in Cambridge, where in 1919 Rutherford became Thomson's successor as director of the University's Cavendish Laboratory. Ernest brought here his colleague at the University of Manchester, the physicist James Chadwick. Together they bombarded a number of light elements with alpha particles and caused nuclear transformations. But they were unable to penetrate the heavier nuclei, because the alpha particles were repelled by them due to the same charge, and scientists could not determine whether this happened separately or together with the target. In both cases, more advanced technology was required.

The higher energies in particle accelerators needed to solve the first problem became available in the late 1920s. In 1932, two students of Rutherford - the Englishman John Cockcroft and the Irishman Ernest Walton - became the first to actually cause a nuclear transformation. With the help of a high-voltage linear accelerator, they bombarded lithium with protons and split it into two α-particles. For this work they received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Scotsman Charles Wilson at Cavendish created a fog chamber that gave visual confirmation of the trajectory of charged particles, for which he was awarded the same prestigious international award in 1927. In 1924, the English physicist Patrick Blackett modified the cloud chamber to photograph about 400,000 alpha collisions and found that most of them were ordinary elastic ones, and 8 were accompanied by decay, in which the α-particle was absorbed by the target nucleus before it was split into two fragments. This was an important step in the understanding of nuclear reactions, for which Blackett was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Discovery of the neutron and thermonuclear fusion

The Cavendish has also become a venue for other interesting works. The existence of the neutron was predicted by Rutherford in 1920. After a long search, in 1932 Chadwick discovered this neutral particle, proving that the nucleus consists of neutrons and protons, and his colleague, the English physicist Norman Feder, soon showed that neutrons can cause nuclear reactions more easily than charged particles. Working with recently discovered heavy water in the USA, in 1934 Rutherford, Mark Oliphant from Australia and Paul Harteck from Austria bombarded deuterium with deuterons and carried out the first thermonuclear fusion.

Life outside of physics

The scientist had several non-science hobbies, including golf and motorsports. Ernest Rutherford was, in short, liberal, but not politically active, although he served as chairman of the advisory council of the government's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and was president for life (since 1933) of the Academic Assistance Council, an organization created to help scientists who fled from Nazi Germany. In 1931 he became a peer, but this event was overshadowed by the death of his daughter, who died eight days earlier. An outstanding scientist died in Cambridge after a short illness and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Ernest Rutherford: interesting facts

• He attended Canterbury College, University of New Zealand on a scholarship, earning a bachelor's and master's degree, and spent two years researching that led to the invention of a new kind of radio.
• Ernest Rutherford was the first non-Cambridge graduate who was allowed to conduct research work at the Cavendish Laboratory under Sir J. J. Thomson.
• During World War I he worked to solve the practical problems of detecting submarines.
• At McGill University in Canada, Ernest Rutherford, along with the chemist Frederick Soddy, created the theory of atomic decay.
• At the University of Victoria in Manchester, he and Thomas Royds proved that alpha radiation is composed of helium ions.
• Rutherford's research on the decay of elements and radioactive substances won him the Nobel Prize in 1908.
• The physicist conducted his most famous Geiger-Marsden experiment, which demonstrated the nuclear nature of the atom, after receiving an award from the Swedish Academy.
• The 104th chemical element, rutherfordium, was named in his honor, which was called kurchatovium in the USSR and the Russian Federation until 1997.

Rutherford Ernest
Born: August 30, 1871
Died: October 19, 1937.

Biography

Sir Ernest Rutherford (Eng. Ernest Rutherford; August 30, 1871, Spring Grove, New Zealand - October 19, 1937, Cambridge) was a British physicist of New Zealand origin.

Known as the "father" of nuclear physics. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908.

In 1911, with his famous experiment on the scattering of α-particles, he proved the existence of a positively charged nucleus in atoms and negatively charged electrons around it. Based on the results of the experiment, he created a planetary model of the atom.

Rutherford was born in New Zealand in the small village of Spring Grove (eng. Spring Grove), located in the north of the South Island near the city of Nelson, in the family of a farmer who grew flax. Father - James Rutherford, immigrated from Perth (Scotland). Mother - Martha Thompson, originally from Hornchurch, Essex, England. At this time, other Scots emigrated to Quebec (Canada), but the Rutherford family was unlucky and the government provided a free steamboat ticket to New Zealand, and not to Canada.

Ernest was the fourth child in a family of twelve children. He had an amazing memory, good health and strength. He graduated with honors from primary school with a score of 580 out of 600 and a £50 bonus to continue his studies at Nelson College. Another scholarship allowed him to continue his studies at Canterbury College in Christchurch (now the University of New Zealand). At that time it was a small university with 150 students and only 7 professors. Rutherford is fond of science and from the first day begins research work.

His master's thesis, written in 1892, was called "Magnetization of iron during high-frequency discharges." The work concerned the detection of high-frequency radio waves, the existence of which was proved in 1888 by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz. Rutherford invented and manufactured a device - a magnetic detector, one of the first receivers of electromagnetic waves.

After graduating from university in 1894, Rutherford was a teacher at a high school for a year. The most gifted young subjects of the British crown, who lived in the colonies, once every two years were given a special Scholarship named after the World Exhibition of 1851 - 150 pounds per year, which made it possible to go to England for further advancement in science. In 1895, Rutherford was awarded this scholarship, as the one who first received it - McClaren, refused it. In the autumn of the same year, having borrowed money for a ticket to the UK, Rutherford arrived in England at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University and became the first doctoral student of its director, Joseph John Thomson. 1895 was the first year (at the initiative of J. J. Thomson) that students from other universities could continue scientific work in the laboratories of Cambridge. Together with Rutherford, John McLennan, John Townsend and Paul Langevin took advantage of this opportunity by enrolling in the Cavendish Laboratory. With Langevin Rutherford worked in the same room and became friends with him, this friendship continued until the end of their lives.

In the same year, 1895, an engagement was concluded with Mary Georgina Newton (1876-1945), the daughter of the hostess of the boarding house in which Rutherford lived. (The wedding took place in 1900, March 30, 1901 they had a daughter - Eileen Mary (1901-1930), later the wife of Ralph Fowler, a famous astrophysicist.)

Rutherford planned to study radio waves or Hertzian waves, pass exams in physics and get a master's degree. But the following year it turned out that the UK Post Office had allocated Marconi's money for the same work and refused to fund it at the Cavendish Laboratory. Since the scholarship was not even enough for food, Rutherford was forced to start working as a tutor and assistant to J. J. Thomson on the topic of studying the process of gas ionization under the action of X-rays. Together with J. J. Thomson, Rutherford discovers the phenomenon of current saturation during gas ionization.

Rutherford discovered alpha and beta rays in 1898. A year later, Paul Villard discovered gamma radiation (the name of this type of ionizing radiation, like the first two, was proposed by Rutherford).

Since the summer of 1898, the scientist has taken the first steps in the study of the newly discovered phenomenon of uranium and thorium radioactivity. In the fall, Rutherford, at the suggestion of Thomson, having overcome the competition of 5 people, takes the position of professor at McGill University in Montreal (Canada) with a salary of 500 pounds sterling or 2,500 Canadian dollars a year. At this university, Rutherford fruitfully collaborates with Frederick Soddy, at that time a junior laboratory assistant in the Faculty of Chemistry, later (like Rutherford) a Nobel laureate in chemistry (1921). In 1903, Rutherford and Soddy put forward and proved the revolutionary idea of ​​the transformation of elements in the process of radioactive decay. In 1905, in September, for a year in Montreal, he came to Rutherford's laboratory to study Otto Hahn, a future Nobel laureate in chemistry from Germany.

Having gained wide popularity due to his work in the field of radioactivity, Rutherford becomes a sought-after scientist and receives numerous job offers in research centers around the world. In the spring of 1907, he left Canada and began a professorship at the University of Victoria (now the University of Manchester) in Manchester (England), where his salary was about 2.5 times higher.

In 1908, Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his research on the decay of elements in the chemistry of radioactive substances."

An important and joyful event in his life was the election of a scientist a member of the Royal Society of London in 1903, and from 1925 to 1930 he served as its president. From 1931-1933 Rutherford was president of the Physics Institute.

In 1914, Rutherford was awarded the title of nobility and became "Sir Ernst". On February 12, at Buckingham Palace, the king knighted him: he was dressed in a court uniform and girded with a sword.

His heraldic coat of arms, approved in 1931, the peer of England, Baron Rutherford Nelson (that was the name of the great physicist after being elevated to the rank of nobility) crowned the kiwi bird, the symbol of New Zealand. The drawing of the coat of arms is an image of an exponent - a curve that characterizes the monotonous process of decreasing the number of radioactive atoms over time.

Ernest Rutherford died on October 19, 1937, four days after an emergency operation for an unexpected illness - an incarcerated hernia - at the age of 66 (although his parents lived to be 90 years old). He was buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the graves of Newton, Darwin and Faraday.

Scientific activity

According to the memoirs of P. L. Kapitza, Rutherford was a prominent representative of the English experimental school in physics, which is characterized by a desire to understand the essence of a physical phenomenon and check whether it can be explained by existing theories (in contrast to the "German" school of experimenters, which proceeds from existing theories and seeks to test them experimentally). He made little use of formulas and little recourse to mathematics, but he was a brilliant experimenter, reminiscent of Faraday in this respect. An important quality of Rutherford as an experimenter noted by Kapitsa was his observation. In particular, thanks to her, he discovered the emanation of thorium, noticing differences in the readings of an electroscope that measured ionization, with the door open and closed in the device, blocking the air flow. Another example is the discovery by Rutherford of artificial transmutation of elements, when the irradiation of nitrogen nuclei in the air with alpha particles was accompanied by the appearance of high-energy particles (protons) that had a greater range, but were very rare.

1904 - "Radioactivity".

1905 - "Radioactive transformations".

1930 - "Emissions of radioactive substances" (co-authored with J. Chadwick and C. Ellis).

12 students of Rutherford became Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry. One of the most talented students, Henry Moseley, who experimentally showed the physical meaning of the Periodic Law, died in 1915 at Gallipoli during the Dardanelles operation. In Montreal, Rutherford worked with F. Soddy, O. Khan; in Manchester - with G. Geiger (in particular, he helped him develop a counter for automatically counting the number of ionizing particles), in Cambridge - with N. Bohr, P. Kapitsa and many other famous scientists in the future.

Study of the phenomenon of radioactivity

After the discovery of radioactive elements, an active study of the physical nature of their radiation began. Rutherford was able to detect the complex composition of radioactive radiation.

The experience was as follows. The radioactive preparation was placed at the bottom of a narrow channel of a lead cylinder, and a photographic plate was placed opposite. The magnetic field acted on the radiation emerging from the channel. In this case, the entire installation was in a vacuum.

In a magnetic field, the beam split into three parts. The two components of the primary radiation deviated in opposite directions, which indicated that they had charges of opposite signs. The third component kept the propagation straight. Radiation with a positive charge is called alpha rays, negative - beta rays, neutral - gamma rays.

Studying the nature of alpha radiation, Rutherford conducted the following experiment. On the path of alpha particles, he placed a counter Geiger, which measured the number of particles emitted in a given time. After that, using an electrometer, he measured the charge of the particles emitted during the same time. Knowing the total charge of alpha particles and their number, Rutherford calculated the charge of one such particle. It turned out to be equal to two elementary ones.

By the deflection of particles in a magnetic field, he determined the ratio of its charge to mass. It turned out that there are two atomic mass units per elementary charge.

Thus, it was found that with a charge equal to two elementary, the alpha particle has four atomic mass units. It follows from this that alpha radiation is a stream of helium nuclei.

In 1920, Rutherford suggested that there should be a particle with a mass equal to the mass of a proton, but not having an electric charge - a neutron. However, he failed to detect such a particle. Its existence was experimentally proven by James Chadwick in 1932.

In addition, Rutherford specified by 30% the ratio of the electron charge to its mass.

radioactive transformations

Based on the properties of radioactive thorium, Rutherford discovered and explained the radioactive transformation of chemical elements. The scientist found that the activity of thorium in a closed ampoule remains unchanged, but if the drug is blown even with a very weak air flow, its activity is significantly reduced. It has been suggested that, simultaneously with alpha particles, thorium emits a radioactive gas.

The results of the joint work of Rutherford and his colleague Frederick Soddy were published in 1902-1903 in a number of articles in the Philosophical Magazine. In these articles, after analyzing the results obtained, the authors came to the conclusion that it is possible to transform some chemical elements into others.

As a result of atomic transformation, a completely new type of substance is formed, completely different in its physical and chemical properties from the original substance - E. Rutherford, F. Soddy

At that time, the idea of ​​the immutability and indivisibility of the atom dominated, other prominent scientists, observing similar phenomena, explained them by the presence of "new" elements in the original substance from the very beginning. However, time has shown the fallacy of such ideas. Subsequent work by physicists and chemists showed in what cases some elements can transform into others and what laws of nature govern these transformations.

Law of radioactive decay

Pumping air out of a vessel with thorium, Rutherford isolated the emanation of thorium (the gas now known as thoron or radon-220, one of the isotopes of radon) and investigated its ionizing ability. It was found that the activity of this gas decreases by half every minute.

Studying the dependence of the activity of radioactive substances on time, the scientist discovered the law of radioactive decay.

Since the nuclei of atoms of chemical elements are quite stable, Rutherford suggested that a very large amount of energy is needed to transform or destroy them. The first nucleus subjected to artificial transformation is the nucleus of the nitrogen atom. By bombarding nitrogen with high-energy alpha particles, Rutherford discovered the appearance of protons - the nuclei of the hydrogen atom.

Geiger-Marsden Gold Foil Experiment

Rutherford is one of the few Nobel Prize winners who has done his most famous work since receiving it. Together with Hans Geiger and Ernst Marsden in 1909, he conducted an experiment that demonstrated the existence of a nucleus in an atom. Rutherford asked Geiger and Marsden in this experiment to look for alpha particles with very large deflection angles, which was not expected from Thomson's model of the atom at the time. Such deviations, although rare, were found, and the probability of deviation turned out to be a smooth, albeit rapidly decreasing, function of the deviation angle.

Rutherford later admitted that when he suggested that his students conduct an experiment on the scattering of alpha particles at large angles, he himself did not believe in a positive result.

It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch projectile at a piece of thin paper and the projectile came back to you and struck.
— Ernest Rutherford

Rutherford was able to interpret the data obtained from the experiment, which led him to develop a planetary model of the atom in 1911. According to this model, an atom consists of a very small positively charged nucleus containing most of the mass of the atom, and light electrons revolving around it.

For his kind disposition, Kapitsa nicknamed Rutherford "The Crocodile." In 1931, Krokodil secured £15,000 for the construction and equipment of a special laboratory building for Kapitsa. In February 1933, the laboratory was inaugurated in Cambridge. On the end wall of a 2-storey building, a huge crocodile was carved in stone, covering the entire wall. It was commissioned by Kapitza and made by the famous sculptor Eric Gill. Rutherford himself explained that it was him. The front door was opened with a gilded key in the shape of a crocodile.

According to Yves, Kapitsa he explained the nickname he invented: "This animal never turns back and therefore can symbolize Rutherford's insight and his rapid advancement." Kapitsa added that "in Russia, the Crocodile is looked at with a mixture of horror and admiration."

E. Rutherford, who discovered the nucleus of the atom, spoke negatively about the prospects for nuclear energy: “Everyone who hopes that the transformation of atomic nuclei will become a source of energy is professing nonsense.” When Pyotr Kapitsa came to work in Cambridge with Rutherford, he told him that the laboratory staff already completed. Then Kapitsa asked: - What is the allowable error you allow in the experiments? - Usually about 3% - And how many people work in the laboratory? - 30 - Then 1 person is about 3% of 30 Rutherford laughed and accepted Kapitsa as a "permissible error". In reality, Kapitsa was taken to the laboratory thanks to the recommendation of the physicist Ioffe [source not specified 1272 days]. In 1908, when Rutherford received the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he declared: "All science is either physics or stamp collecting" (All science is either physics or stamp collecting)

Memory

Rutherford is one of the world's most respected scientists. In 1914 George V knighted Rutherford as a Knight Bachelor. In 1925 he received him as a member of the Order of Merit, and in 1931 he appointed Rutherford a baron.

Named after Ernest Rutherford:
chemical element number 104 in the periodic system is Rutherfordium, first synthesized in 1964 and given the name in 1997 (before that it was called "Kurchatovium").
Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, one of the UK's national laboratories, opened in 1957.
asteroid (1249) Rutherfordia.
crater on the far side of the moon.
Medal and Prize of the Rutherford Institute of Physics (UK).
Rutherford Medal.

Ernest Rutherford(1871-1937) - English physicist, one of the creators of the theory of radioactivity and the structure of the atom, founder of a scientific school, foreign corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1922) and honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1925). Director of the Cavendish Laboratory (since 1919). Opened (1899) alpha rays, beta rays and established their nature. Created (1903, together with Frederick Soddy) the theory of radioactivity. He proposed (1911) a planetary model of the atom. Carried out (1919) the first artificial nuclear reaction. Predicted (1921) the existence of the neutron. Nobel Prize (1908).

Ernest Rutherford was born August 30, 1871, at Spring Grove, near Brightwater, South Island, New Zealand. A native of New Zealand, the founder of nuclear physics, the author of the planetary model of the atom, a member (in 1925-30 president) of the Royal Society of London, a member of all academies of sciences in the world, including (since 1925) a foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1908) ), founder of a large scientific school.

Childhood

Rutherford Ernest

Ernest was born to wheelwright James Rutherford and his teacher wife Martha Thompson. In addition to Ernest, the family had 6 more sons and 5 daughters. Until 1889, when the family moved to Pungarehu (North Island), Ernest entered Canterbury College, New Zealand University (Christchurch, South Island); before that he had studied at Foxhill and at Havelock, at Nelson College for Boys.

The brilliant abilities of Ernest Rutherford showed up already in the years of study. After graduating from the fourth year, he receives an award for the best work in mathematics and takes first place in master's examinations, not only in mathematics, but also in physics. But, having become a master of arts, he did not leave the college. Rutherford plunged into his first independent scientific work. It had the name: "Magnetization of iron at high-frequency discharges". A device was invented and manufactured - a magnetic detector, one of the first receivers of electromagnetic waves, which became his "entrance ticket" to the world of big science. And soon a major change took place in his life.

The most gifted young overseas subjects of the British crown once every two years were given a special Scholarship named after the World Exhibition of 1851, which made it possible to go to England for improvement in science. In 1895, it was decided that two New Zealanders, the chemist Maclaurin and the physicist Rutherford, were worthy of it. But there was only one place, and Rutherford's hopes were dashed. But family circumstances forced Maclaurin to refuse the trip, and in the fall of 1895 Ernest Rutherford arrived in England, at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University and became the first doctoral student of its director, Joseph John Thomson.

At the Cavendish Laboratory

young physicist: I work from morning to evening.
Rutherford: And when do you think?

Rutherford Ernest

Joseph John Thomson was by that time a well-known scientist, a member of the Royal Society of London. He quickly appreciated the outstanding abilities of Rutherford and involved him in his work on the study of the processes of gas ionization under the action of X-rays. But already in the summer of 1898 Rutherford took the first steps in the study of other rays - Becquerel rays. The radiation of uranium salt discovered by this French physicist was later called radioactive. A. A. Becquerel himself and the Curie spouses, Pierre and Maria, were actively involved in its study. E. Rutherford actively joined this research in 1898. It was he who discovered that beams of Becquerel include streams of positively charged helium nuclei (alpha particles) and streams of beta particles - electrons. (The beta decay of some elements emits positrons rather than electrons; positrons have the same mass as electrons but have a positive electrical charge.) Two years later, in 1900, the French physicist Villars (1860-1934) discovered that gamma rays that do not carry an electric charge are also emitted - electromagnetic radiation, shorter than x-rays.

On July 18, 1898, the work of Pierre Curie and Marie Curie-Sklodowska was presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences, which aroused Rutherford's exceptional interest. In this work, the authors pointed out that in addition to uranium, there are other radioactive (this term was used for the first time) elements. Later, it was Rutherford who introduced the concept of one of the main distinguishing features of such elements - the half-life.

In December 1897, Rutherford's exhibition scholarship was extended, and he was able to continue his research on uranium rays. But in April 1898, a professorship at McGill University in Montreal became vacant, and Rutherford decided to move to Canada. The time for apprenticeship is over. It was clear to everyone, and, first of all, to him himself, that he was already ready for independent work.

Nine years in Canada

Lucky Rutherford, you are always on the wave!
"That's true, but isn't it me who creates the wave?"

Rutherford Ernest

The move to Canada took place in the fall of 1898. Ernest Rutherford's teaching at first did not go very well: the students did not like the lectures, which the young and not yet quite learned to feel the audience professor, oversaturated with details. Some difficulties arose at the beginning and in scientific work due to the fact that the arrival of the ordered radioactive preparations was delayed. But all the roughness quickly smoothed out, and a streak of success and good luck began. However, it is hardly appropriate to talk about successes: everything was achieved by work. And new like-minded people and friends were involved in this work.

Around Rutherford, both then and in later years, an atmosphere of enthusiasm and creative enthusiasm always quickly formed. The work was intense and joyful, and it led to important discoveries. In 1899, Ernest Rutherford discovered the emanation of thorium, and in 1902-03, together with F. Soddy, he already came to the general law of radioactive transformations. This scientific event needs to be said in more detail.

All chemists of the world have firmly grasped that the transformation of some chemical elements into others is impossible, that the dreams of alchemists to make gold from lead should be buried forever. And now a work appears, the authors of which argue that the transformations of elements during radioactive decays not only occur, but that it is even impossible to stop or slow them down. Moreover, the laws of such transformations are formulated. We now understand that the position of an element in Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic system, and hence its chemical properties, are determined by the charge of the nucleus. During alpha decay, when the nuclear charge decreases by two units (an “elementary” charge is taken as a unit - the electron charge module), the element “moves” two cells up in the periodic table, during electronic beta decay - one cell down, with positron - one cell up. Despite the apparent simplicity and even obviousness of this law, its discovery has become one of the most important scientific events of the beginning of our century.

This time is significant and an important event in Rutherford's personal life: 5 years after the engagement, his wedding took place with Mary Georgina Newton, the daughter of the hostess of the boarding house in Christchurch where he once lived. On March 30, 1901, the only daughter of the Rutherford couple was born. In time, this almost coincided with the birth of a new chapter in physical science - nuclear physics. An important and joyful event was the election of Rutherford in 1903 as a member of the Royal Society of London.

Planetary model of the atom

If a scientist cannot explain the meaning of his work to the cleaner who cleans his laboratory, then he himself does not understand what he is doing.

Rutherford Ernest

The results of Rutherford's scientific searches and discoveries formed the content of two of his books. The first of them was called "Radioactivity" and was published in 1904. A year later, the second was published - "Radioactive Transformations". And their author has already begun new research. He already understood that radioactive radiation comes from atoms, but the place of its origin remained completely unclear. It was necessary to investigate the structure of the atom. And here Ernest Rutherford turned to the technique with which he began work with J. J. Thomson - to the transmission of alpha particles. In experiments, it was investigated how the flow of such particles passes through sheets of thin foil.

The first model of the atom was proposed when it became known that electrons have a negative electrical charge. But they enter into atoms that are generally electrically neutral; what is a positive charge carrier? J. J. Thomson proposed the following model to solve this problem: an atom is something like a positively charged drop with a radius of one hundred millionth (10) of a centimeter, inside of which are tiny negatively charged electrons. Under the influence of Coulomb forces, they tend to occupy a position in the center of the atom, but if something takes them out of this equilibrium position, they begin to oscillate, which is accompanied by radiation (thus, the model also explained the then known fact of the existence of radiation spectra). From experiments it was already known that the distances between atoms in solids are approximately the same as the sizes of atoms. Therefore, it seemed obvious that alpha particles could hardly fly through even thin foil, just as a stone could not fly through a forest where the trees grew almost close to each other. But the very first experiments of Rutherford convinced that this was not so. The vast majority of alpha particles penetrated the foil, even almost without deflection, and only in some of them this deflection was observed, sometimes even quite significant.

And here again the exceptional intuition of Ernest Rutherford and his ability to understand the language of nature manifested itself. He resolutely rejects the Thomson model and puts forward a fundamentally new model. It was called planetary: in the center of the atom, like the Sun in the solar system, there is a nucleus, in which, despite its relatively small size, the entire mass of the atom is concentrated. And around it, like planets moving around the Sun, electrons revolve. Their masses are much smaller than those of alpha particles, which therefore almost do not deflect when penetrating the electron clouds. And only when an alpha particle flies close to a positively charged nucleus, the Coulomb repulsive force can sharply bend its trajectory.

The formula that Rutherford derived based on this model was in perfect agreement with the experimental data. In 1903, the idea of ​​a planetary model of the atom was reported to the Tokyo Physical and Mathematical Society by the Japanese theorist Hantaro Nagaoka, who called this model "Saturn-like", but his work (which Rutherford did not know about) was not further developed.

But the planetary model was not consistent with the laws of electrodynamics! These laws, established mainly by the writings of Michael Faraday and James Maxwell, state that a rapidly moving charge radiates electromagnetic waves and therefore loses energy. An electron in E. Rutherford's atom moves rapidly in the Coulomb field of the nucleus and, as Maxwell's theory shows, should, having lost all energy in about a ten millionth of a second, fall onto the nucleus. This is called the problem of radiative instability of the Rutherford model of the atom, and Ernest Rutherford understood it clearly when the time came for his return to England in 1907.

Return to England

Now you see that nothing is visible. And why nothing is visible, you will see now.

Rutherford Ernest

Rutherford's work at McGill University brought him such fame that he was vying to be invited to work in research centers in various countries. In the spring of 1907 he made the decision to leave Canada and arrived at the Victoria University of Manchester. The work was immediately continued. Already in 1908, together with Hans Geiger, Rutherford created a new remarkable device - the alpha particle counter, which played an important role in finding out that they are doubly ionized helium atoms. In 1908 Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize (but not in physics, but in chemistry).

The planetary model of the atom meanwhile occupied his thoughts more and more. And in March 1912, Rutherford's friendship and collaboration with the Danish physicist Niels Bohr began. Bohr - and this was his greatest scientific merit - introduced fundamentally new features into Rutherford's planetary model - the idea of ​​quanta. This idea arose at the beginning of the century thanks to the work of the great Max Planck, who realized that in order to explain the laws of thermal radiation, it is necessary to assume that energy is carried away in discrete portions - quanta. The idea of ​​discreteness was organically alien to all classical physics, in particular, the theory of electromagnetic waves, but soon Albert Einstein, and then Arthur Compton showed that this quantumness manifests itself both during absorption and scattering.

Niels Bohr put forward "postulates" that at first glance looked internally contradictory: there are such orbits in the atom, moving along which the electron, contrary to the laws of classical electrodynamics, does not radiate, although it has acceleration; Bohr indicated a rule for finding such stationary orbits; radiation quanta appear (or are absorbed) only when an electron moves from one orbit to another, in accordance with the law of conservation of energy. The Bohr-Rutherford atom, as it rightly began to be called, not only brought a solution to many problems, it marked a breakthrough into the world of new ideas, which soon led to a radical revision of many ideas about matter and its motion. Niels Bohr's work "On the Structure of Atoms and Molecules" was sent to print by Rutherford.

Alchemy of the 20th century

And at this time, and later, when Ernest Rutherford in 1919 accepts the post of professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Cavendish Laboratory, he becomes the center of attraction for physicists around the world. Dozens of scientists rightly considered him their teacher, including those who later received Nobel Prizes: Henry Moseley, James Chadwick, John Douglas Cockcroft, M. Oliphant, V. Geytler, Otto Hahn, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Yuli Borisovich Khariton, Georgy Antonovich Gamow .

Three stages of recognition of scientific truth: the first - "this is absurd", the second - "there is something in this", the third - "it is well known"

Rutherford Ernest

The flow of awards and honors became more and more abundant. In 1914 Rutherfort received the nobility, in 1923 he became President of the British Association, from 1925 to 1930 - President of the Royal Society, in 1931 he received the title of baron and became Lord Rutherford of Nelson. But, despite the ever-increasing workload, including - and not only scientific, Rutherford continues ram attacks on the secrets of the atom and nucleus. He had already begun experiments that culminated in the discovery of the artificial transformation of chemical elements and the artificial fission of atomic nuclei, predicted the existence of the neutron and deuteron in 1920, and in 1933 was the initiator and direct participant in the experimental verification of the relationship between mass and energy in nuclear processes. In April 1932, Ernest Rutherford actively supported the idea of ​​using proton accelerators in the study of nuclear reactions. He can also be counted among the founders of nuclear energy.

The works of Ernest Rutherford, who is often rightly called one of the titans of physics of our century, the work of several generations of his students, had a huge impact not only on the science and technology of our faith, but also on the lives of millions of people. Of course, Rutherford, especially at the end of his life, could not help but wonder whether this influence would remain beneficial. But he was an optimist, he believed in people and in science, to which he devoted his whole life.

Ernest Rutherford died October 19, 1937, in Cambridge and is buried in Westminster Abbey

Ernest Rutherford - quotes

All sciences are divided into physics and stamp collecting.

young physicist: I work from morning to evening. Rutherford: And when do you think?

Lucky Rutherford, you are always on the wave! "That's true, but isn't it me who creates the wave?"

If a scientist cannot explain the meaning of his work to the cleaner who cleans his laboratory, then he himself does not understand what he is doing.

Now you see that nothing is visible. And why nothing is visible, you will see now. - from a lecture with a demonstration of the decay of radium

Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871 near the town of Nelson (New Zealand) in the family of a migrant from Scotland. Ernest was the fourth of twelve children. His mother worked as a rural teacher. The father of the future scientist organized a woodworking enterprise. Under the guidance of his father, the boy received good training for work in the workshop, which subsequently helped him in the design and construction of scientific equipment.

After graduating from school in Havelock, where the family lived at that time, he received a scholarship to continue his education at Nelson Provincial College, where he entered in 1887. Two years later, Ernest passed the exam at Canterbury College, a branch of the University of New Zealand at Crichester. In college, Rutherford was greatly influenced by his teachers: E. W. Bickerton, who taught physics and chemistry, and J. H. H. Cook, a mathematician. After being awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1892, Rutherford remained at Canterbury College and continued his studies on a scholarship in mathematics. The following year, he became a master of arts, having passed the exams in mathematics and physics with the best of all. His master's work concerned the detection of high-frequency radio waves, the existence of which was proven about ten years ago. In order to study this phenomenon, he built a wireless radio receiver (a few years before Marconi did) and with it received signals transmitted by colleagues from a distance of half a mile.

In 1894, his first published work, Magnetization of Iron by High-Frequency Discharges, appeared in the New Zealand Philosophical Institute Proceedings. In 1895, a scholarship for scientific education was vacant, the first candidate for this scholarship refused for family reasons, the second candidate was Rutherford. Arriving in England, Rutherford received an invitation from J. J. Thomson to work in Cambridge in the Cavendish laboratory. Thus began the scientific path of Rutherford.

Thomson was deeply impressed by Rutherford's research into radio waves, and in 1896 he proposed to jointly study the effect of X-rays on electrical discharges in gases. In the same year, the joint work of Thomson and Rutherford "On the passage of electricity through gases subjected to the action of X-rays" appears. Rutherford's final paper "The Magnetic Detector of Electric Waves and Some of Its Applications" is published the following year. After that, he completely concentrates his efforts on the study of a gas discharge. In 1897, his new work “On the electrification of gases exposed to X-rays, and on the absorption of X-rays by gases and vapors” appears.

Their collaboration was crowned with significant results, including Thomson's discovery of the electron, an atomic particle that carries a negative electrical charge. Based on their research, Thomson and Rutherford hypothesized that when X-rays pass through a gas, they destroy the atoms of that gas, releasing an equal number of positively and negatively charged particles. They called these particles ions. After this work, Rutherford took up the study of atomic structure.

In 1898, Rutherford accepted a professorship at McGill University in Montreal, where he began a series of important experiments concerning the radioactive emission of the element uranium. Rutherford, during his very laborious experiments, quite often was overcome by a dejected mood. After all, with all his efforts, he did not receive sufficient funds to build the necessary instruments. Rutherford built much of the equipment necessary for the experiments with his own hands. He worked in Montreal for quite a long time - seven years. The exception was 1900, when, during a brief trip to New Zealand, Rutherford married Mary Newton. They later had a daughter.

In Canada, he made fundamental discoveries: he discovered the emanation of thorium and unraveled the nature of the so-called induced radioactivity; together with Soddy, he discovered radioactive decay and its law. Here he wrote the book "Radioactivity".

In their classic work, Rutherford and Soddy touched on the fundamental question of the energy of radioactive transformations. Calculating the energy of alpha particles emitted by radium, they conclude that "the energy of radioactive transformations is at least 20,000 times, and maybe a million times greater than the energy of any molecular transformation." Rutherford and Soddy concluded that "the energy , hidden in the atom, is many times greater than the energy released during the usual chemical transformation. This huge energy, in their opinion, should be taken into account "when explaining the phenomena of space physics." In particular, the constancy of solar energy can be explained by the fact that the processes of subatomic transformation are taking place on the Sun.

It is impossible not to be amazed at the foresight of the authors, who saw as far back as 1903 the cosmic role of nuclear energy. This year was the year of the discovery of this new form of energy, which Rutherford and Soddy spoke with such certainty, calling it intra-atomic energy.

The scope of Rutherford's scientific work in Montreal is enormous; he published 66 articles, both personally and jointly with other scientists, not counting the book Radioactivity, which brought Rutherford fame as a first-class researcher. He receives an invitation to take the chair in Manchester. On May 24, 1907, Rutherford returned to Europe. A new period of his life began.

In Manchester, Rutherford launched a vigorous activity, attracting young scientists from around the world. One of his active collaborators was the German physicist Hans Geiger, the creator of the first elementary particle counter (Geiger counter). E. Marsden, K. Fajans, G. Moseley, G. Hevesy and other physicists and chemists worked with Rutherford in Manchester.

Niels Bohr, who arrived in Manchester in 1912, later recalled this period: “At that time, a large number of young physicists from around the world grouped around Rutherford, attracted by his extraordinary talent as a physicist and rare abilities as an organizer of a scientific team.”

In 1908, Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his research on the decay of elements in the chemistry of radioactive substances." In his opening speech on behalf of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, K. B. Hasselberg pointed out the connection between the work carried out by Rutherford and the work of Thomson, Henri Becquerel, Pierre and Marie Curie. "The discoveries have led to a startling conclusion: a chemical element ... is capable of transforming into other elements," Hasselberg said. In his Nobel lecture, Rutherford noted: “There is every reason to believe that the alpha particles, which are so freely emitted from most radioactive substances, are identical in mass and composition and must consist of the nuclei of helium atoms. We therefore cannot help but conclude that the atoms of the basic radioactive elements, such as uranium and thorium, must be built at least in part from helium atoms.

After receiving the Nobel Prize, Rutherford began to study the phenomenon that was observed when a plate of thin gold foil was bombarded with alpha particles emitted by such a radioactive element as uranium. It turned out that with the help of the angle of reflection of alpha particles it is possible to study the structure of the stable elements that make up the plate. According to the then accepted ideas, the model of the atom was like a pudding with raisins: positive and negative charges were evenly distributed inside the atom and, therefore, could not significantly change the direction of the movement of alpha particles. Rutherford, however, noticed that certain alpha particles deviated from the expected direction to a much greater extent than allowed by theory. Working with Ernest Marsden, a student at the University of Manchester, the scientist confirmed that a fairly large number of alpha particles are deflected further than expected, some at more than 90 degrees.

Reflecting on this phenomenon. Rutherford proposed a new model of the atom in 1911. According to his theory, which has become generally accepted today, positively charged particles are concentrated in the heavy center of the atom, and negatively charged particles (electrons) are in the orbit of the nucleus, at a fairly large distance from it. This model, like the tiny model of the solar system, implies that atoms are made up mostly of empty space.

The widespread recognition of Rutherford's theory began when the Danish physicist Niels Bohr joined the work of a scientist at the University of Manchester. Bohr showed that the well-known physical properties of the hydrogen atom, as well as the atoms of several heavier elements, could be explained in terms of the structure proposed by Rutherford.

The fruitful work of the Rutherford group in Manchester was interrupted by the First World War. The war scattered the friendly team across different countries at war with each other. Moseley, who had just glorified his name with a major discovery in X-ray spectroscopy, was killed, Chadwick languished in German captivity. The British government appointed Rutherford a member of the "Admiral's Staff of Inventions and Research" - an organization created to find means of combating enemy submarines. In Rutherford's laboratory, therefore, studies began on the propagation of sound under water in order to provide a theoretical justification for determining the location of submarines. Only at the end of the war, the scientist was able to resume his research, but in a different place.

After the war, he returned to the Manchester laboratory and in 1919 made another fundamental discovery. Rutherford managed to artificially carry out the first reaction of the transformation of atoms. By bombarding nitrogen atoms with alpha particles. Rutherford discovered that oxygen atoms are formed in this process. This new observation was another proof of the ability of atoms to transform. In this case, in this case, a proton is released from the nucleus of the nitrogen atom - a particle that carries a unit positive charge. As a result of Rutherford's research, the interest of specialists in atomic physics in the nature of the atomic nucleus has sharply increased.

In 1919 Rutherford moved to the University of Cambridge, succeeding Thomson as professor of experimental physics and director of the Cavendish Laboratory, and in 1921 he took up the position of professor of natural sciences at the Royal Institution in London. In 1925, the scientist was awarded the British Order of Merit. In 1930, Rutherford was appointed chairman of the government's advisory board to the Office of Scientific and Industrial Research. In 1931, he received the title of Lord and became a member of the House of Lords of the English Parliament.

Rutherford strove to ensure that the scientific approach to the fulfillment of all the tasks entrusted to him contributed to the multiplication of the glory of his homeland. He constantly and with great success proved in authoritative bodies the need for all-round state support for science and research work.

At the height of his career, the scientist attracted many talented young physicists to work in his laboratory at Cambridge, including P. M. Blackett, John Cockcroft, James Chadwick and Ernest Walton. The Soviet scientist Kapitsa also visited this laboratory.

In one of the letters, Kapitsa calls Rutherford the Crocodile. The fact is that Rutherford had a loud voice, and he did not know how to manage it. The powerful voice of the master, who met someone in the corridor, warned those who were in the laboratories of his approach, and the employees had time to "collect their thoughts." In “Memoirs of Professor Rutherford,” Kapitsa wrote: “He was rather dense in appearance, taller than average, his eyes were blue, always very cheerful, his face very expressive. He was mobile, his voice was loud, he did not know how to modulate it well, everyone knew about it, and it was possible to judge by intonation whether the professor was in the spirit or not. In all his manner of communicating with people, his sincerity and spontaneity were immediately evident from the first word. His answers were always short, clear and precise. When someone told him something, he immediately reacted, whatever it was. It was possible to discuss any problem with him - he immediately began to talk about it willingly.

Although this left Rutherford himself with less time for active research work, his deep interest in ongoing research and clear leadership helped to maintain a high level of work carried out in his laboratory.

Rutherford had the ability to identify the most important problems of his science, making the still unknown connections in nature the subject of research. Along with his inherent gift of foresight as a theoretician, Rutherford had a practical streak. It was thanks to her that he was always accurate in explaining the observed phenomena, no matter how unusual they may seem at first glance.

Students and colleagues remembered the scientist as a nice, kind person. They admired his extraordinary creative way of thinking, recalling how he happily said before the start of each new study: “I hope this is an important topic, because there are still so many things that we don’t know.”

Concerned about the policies pursued by the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler, Rutherford in 1933 became president of the Academic Relief Council, which was set up to assist those who fled Germany.

Almost to the end of his life, he was distinguished by good health and died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937, after a short illness. In recognition of outstanding achievements in the development of science, the scientist was buried in Westminster Abbey.

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(1871-1937) English physicist, founder of nuclear physics

Ernest Rutherford was born in Spring Grove (now Brightwater) in New Zealand, in a simple Scottish family. His father, James Rutherford, was a wheelwright and his mother, Martha Thomson, was a teacher. Ernest was the fourth of twelve children. Since childhood, he was a very observant and hardworking boy. After graduating from elementary school as the best student, Ernest received a scholarship to continue his education at Nelson Provincial College, where he entered in 1887 in the fifth grade. Already here his exceptional abilities for mathematics were manifested; he was also good at physics, chemistry, literature, Latin and French. Ernest was fond of constructing various mechanisms as a child: he built models of watermills, cars, even made a camera.

After graduating from college, he entered Canterbury College at the University of New Zealand in Christchurch. Here Rutherford began to study physics and chemistry more seriously, worked in student circles, and was even one of the initiators of the creation of a scientific student society at the university.

After reading an article by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz on the discovery of electromagnetic waves, Rutherford decided to investigate their properties. But there was a problem of detecting incoming electromagnetic waves. He managed to establish that their presence can be judged by the demagnetization of iron. It was the first real discovery of the twenty-three-year-old Rutherford.

In 1894, Ernest graduated from college with honors and received a master's degree in physics and mathematics. He became a high school physics teacher, but did not excel in this field. In 1895, he was awarded the largest scholarship - the "1851 scholarship", which made it possible to study in the best laboratories in the country. In the autumn of 1895, Rutherford arrived in Cambridge - the scientific center of England - and began working at the Cavendish Laboratory under the guidance of the outstanding English physicist Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940).

Ernest continues his research in the field of electromagnetic waves, and in 1896 he manages to establish radio communication at a distance of about 3 kilometers. The practical side of radio communication was of little interest to him, and therefore he stops his work in this area, and gives the transmitter to the Italian engineer G. Marconi, who used it in his research. At this time, Rutherford, together with J. J. Thomson, began work on the study of the ionization of gases and air by various methods, including X-rays. But after the discovery of radioactivity by Becquerel in 1896, Rutherford began to compare the rays of Roentgen and Becquerel.

In 1898 he was appointed professor of physics at McGill University in Montreal and arrived in Canada in September of that year. He worked at McGill University for 9 years - until 1907 - and made many important discoveries. In 1898, Rutherford began to study uranium radiation, the results of which were published in 1899 in the article "The radiation of uranium and the electrical conductivity created by it." Investigating uranium radiation in a magnetic field, Rutherford found that it consists of two components. The first component, which deviates in one direction and is easily absorbed by a sheet of paper, he called alpha rays, and the second, which deviates in the opposite direction and has a greater penetrating power, beta rays.

In 1900, Villars discovered another component in the radiation of uranium, which did not deviate in a magnetic field and had the greatest penetrating power, it was called gamma rays. In 1900, while studying the radioactivity of thorium, Rutherford discovered a new gas, later named radon. Together with the English physicist and chemist Frederick Soddy, in 1902-1903 he developed the theory of radioactive decay and established the law of radioactive transformations. Rutherford predicted the existence of transuranic elements. The result of the nine-year work of the scientist in Montreal is more than 50 published scientific articles and the book "Radioactivity", which summed up all the knowledge known to science about this phenomenon.

Rutherford's name becomes known, and he receives an invitation to take the position of professor of physics at the University of Manchester and director of the physical laboratory. On May 24, 1907, Ernest Rutherford returned to Europe and began to work on unraveling the nature of alpha particles and their passage through matter, the study of which he began back in Canada. For research on the transformation of elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908.

In Manchester, Rutherford creates a team of outstanding researchers from around the world, among whom were the German physicist Hans Geiger (1882-1945), the English physicist Henry Moseley (1887-1915), the New Zealand physicist, at that time a final year student, Ernest Marsden (1889- 1970) and other scientists. Rutherford's largest scientific discoveries were made in an atmosphere of collective scientific creativity. In 1908, together with Geiger, he designed a device for registering individual charged particles, called the Geiger counter. In 1909 he found out the nature of alpha particles: they are doubly ionized helium atoms. In 1911, based on the results of experiments conducted by his students Marsden and Geiger, he established the law of scattering of alpha particles by atoms of various elements, which led him in May 1911 to create a new model of the atom - planetary. According to this model, the atom is similar to the solar system: in the center there is a massive positive nucleus with a diameter of about 10 12 cm, around which negative electrons rotate in circular orbits. The number of elementary positive charges contained in the atomic nucleus coincides with the serial number of the element in the table of D. I. Mendeleev, its shell contains the same number of electrons, since the atom as a whole is electrically neutral.

Before Rutherford could exclaim, “Now I know what an atom looks like!”, Marsden and Geiger had to record and count over 2 million barely visible scintillations (flashes) of alpha particles.

In 1912, the outstanding Danish physicist Niels Bohr came to Manchester. He managed to eliminate the contradictions of the planetary model of the atom proposed by Rutherford. As a result of his work, the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom appeared, which marked the beginning of quantum and nuclear physics.

In 1914, Rutherford put forward the idea of ​​artificial transformation of atomic nuclei. But the outbreak of the First World War interrupted the research and scattered the friendly team to different, warring countries. Rutherford himself was involved in military research and was developing acoustic methods to combat German submarines. At the front in 1915, at the age of 28, Henry Moseley was killed - one of his best students, who glorified his name with a major discovery in X-ray spectroscopy. James Chadwick was in German captivity, Marsden fought in France, and Niels Bohr returned to Copenhagen. Only after the war Rutherford was able to resume his research.

In 1919, he moved to Cambridge, where he held the post of professor at the University of Cambridge and succeeded his teacher J. J. Thomson, becoming director of the Cavendish Laboratory. The scientist held this post until the end of his life. Continued research is bringing brilliant results: an artificial nuclear reaction has been carried out converting nitrogen into oxygen, which laid the foundations of modern nuclear physics. In 1920, Rutherford predicted the existence of the neutron, a neutral particle equal in mass to a hydrogen nucleus. Such a particle was discovered in 1932 by his student and collaborator Chadwick, who became a Nobel laureate in connection with this. The Cavendish Laboratory, led by Rutherford, became a scientific Mecca for physicists of all countries.

He treated his students with exceptional care, affectionately calling them "boys", did not allow them to work in the laboratory for more than six in the evening, and on weekends did not allow them to work at all. He guided his students like a "good-natured father of the family," and they affectionately called their teacher "daddy." Every day, Rutherford gathered employees over a cup of tea to discuss not only scientific problems and the results of experiments, but also issues of politics, art and literature. The great scientist was completely devoid of any stiffness, snobbery and desire to create an atmosphere of admiration around him.

Soviet physicists Yu. B. Khariton, A. I. Leipunsky, K. D. Sinelnikov, L. D. Landau and others also studied under him. In 1921, a young Soviet physicist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894-1984) came to Rutherford in Cambridge and worked there for 13 years. He became an active collaborator and friend of Rutherford, lived up to the expectations of his teacher, achieving outstanding scientific results. In 1971, on the initiative of P. L. Kapitsa, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the scientist in our country, the Rutherford commemorative medal was issued and a collection of his works was published.

He was a member of all the academies of sciences in the world, since 1925 - a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union; from 1903 a member of the Royal Society of London, and from 1925 to 1930 - its president. In 1931 he was made a baron and became Lord Nelson. The great experimenter was awarded all the awards of the scientific world for his scientific merits.

Ernest Rutherford died on October 19, 1937 at the age of 66. His death was a huge loss for science, numerous students and all mankind. The great physicist is buried in Westminster Abbey - in St. Paul's Cathedral, next to the graves of I. Newton, M. Faraday, C. Darwin, V. Herschel, in one of the naves of the cathedral, called the "Science Corner".