Ernest Rutherford was born on

30 August 1871 in Spring grove near

Nelson,Newzealand. His father, James
Rutherford was a farmer from Scotland and
his mother Martha Thompson was a school
teacher from England.
Ernest was the fourth of
the 12 children. He was blessed with high
intelligence and talent for sports.

He attended high school at Nelson

college, where his boarding fees were funded by a
scholarship. In 1893 he graduated with first class
honors in Mathematics and Physical science. In 1895
he obtained a bachelors degree in Chemistry and
Geology from Canterbury college and spent short
time working as a school teacher. He then won a
scholarship that enabled him to study overseas. He
decided to go Cambridge in the United Kingdom to
work in J.J Thomson's laboratory. Rutherford's
research works remarkably impressing Thompson
enormously.
Words of J.J Thomson about
Rutherford I have never had a student with more
enthusiasm or ability for original research than Mr.
Rutherford

And so in 1898 Rutherford

sailed to Canada taking up a professorship
aged 27.At Mc Gill he carried out the work
which led to his Nobel prize on 1908.
In 1907 after nine years at Mc
Gill Rutherford sailed back to the UK,where
he had been appointed to the university of
Manchester chairs of Physics.

Discovery of alpha and beta radiation

Starting in 1898 Rutherford studied
radiation emitted by Uranium.He discovered
different types radiation with the help of his coworker Frederic Soddy and he came to the
following conclusions.
1. Alpha particles are atomic in nature.
2. Alpha particles are Helium ions carrying
2+ charge.
3. Alpha particles are produced by the
disintegration of larger atoms.
4. When large atoms emit alpha particles
they become
slightly smaller atoms.

Rutherford coined the terms

alpha,beta and gamma for the three most
common types of nuclear reaction.We still
use these terms today.
In 1907 Rutherford discovered that radio
active elements have half-lives, he coined
the term half-life period to that
phenominon.Rutherford was awarded the
Nobel prize on 1908 in chemistry for his
investigations into the disintegration of the
elements and the chemistry of radio active
substances.

DISCOVERY OF ATOMIC NUCLEUS

Ernest Rutherford overtuned
Thomson's atom model(plum pudding
model)with his well-known Gold foil
experiment in which he demonstrated that
the atom has a tiny massive nucleus.
Rutherford designed an experiment
to use alpha particles emitted by a radio
active element as probes to the unseen
world of atomic structure.

Rutherford beamed alpha particles through

gold foil and detected them as flashes of
light or scintillation on a screen.
The Gold foil was only 0.00004 centimeter
thickness.

During the experiment,most alpha particles

were observed to pass straight through the
gold foil.
A few were scattered at large angles.
Some even bounced back toward the source.
Rutherford explained the effect by
proposing a new model for the atom
replacing the plum pudding model of his old
mentor J.J Thomson.

most of the mass and all positive charges of

an atom is concentrated in a very small
region called nucleus.
The positive charge on the nucleus is due to
protons.
The nucleus is surrounded by negatively
charged electrons they revolve around the
nucleus.
Total negative charge on the electrons is
balanced by the total positive charge on the
nucleus.ie,nucleus is electrically neutral.
Most of the space inside the atom is empty.

Rutherford model failed to explain the

stability the atom.
It does not tell anything about the
distribution of electrons around the nucleus
and also about their energies.
Rutherford's model failed to explain the
existence of certain lines in the spectrum of
Hydrogen.

DISCOVERY OF NUCLEAR REACTIONS

In 1919 he converted nitrogen atoms into
Oxygen atoms by bombarding Nitrogen with alpha
particles. This nuclear reaction was initially written
as,
14N +
17O +1H
DISCOVERY OF PROTON
Finding hydrogen produced in the nuclear
reaction above,Rutherford began to suspect that the
hydrogen nucleus may actually be a fundamental
particle,a building block of all atomic nucleus.
He formalized this in 1920 by giving this
particle a name: the proton. the first nuclear
reaction could now written as,
14N +
17 O+proton

PREDICTING THE EXISTANCE OF NEUTRON

Rutherford carried out calculations of
the stability of atomic nuclei. He found that
unless some particle were added to the
nucleus ,the repulsion of the positively
charged protons apart.In 1920 he named this
hypothetical particle the neutron.
James Chadwick ,Rutherford's
assistant director of research, discovered the
neutron in 1932,proving its existence by
experiments.

1908-Nobel prize in chemistry for his

investigations into the disintegration of the
elements and chemistry of radio active
substances
1914-Knighthood for the advancement of
science.(he is the first Baron of Nelson
&Cambridge)
In 1919,with J.J Thomson retirement as the
Cavendish professor of experimental physics,
Rutherford his old student was appointed as
his replacement.

Rutherford was a direct no-non sense man, who

spoke his mind. He was not overly concerned with his
appearance; some people mistook the great scientist for a
farmer!
He was well-known for his limitless reserves of
energy and enthusiasm, which left a number of his workers
exhausted.
In 1900, Rutherford marry Mary Georgina. They
had one child, Eileen Mary born in 1901.
Ernest Rutherford was died due to intestinal
paralysis at the age 66 on October 19,1937.His ashes were
buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey, joining other
science greats such as Newton, Lord Kelvin, Charles Darwin
etc
ELEMENT 104 IS NAMED RUTHERFORDIUM IN HIS
HONOR.