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Birth.
Ernest Rutherford was born in 1871 near the city of Nelson . -
Early life and education.
He studied at Havelock School and then Nelson College and won a scholarship to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand, where he participated in the debating society and played rugby. -
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Scientific research.
Rutherford was joined at McGill by the young chemist Frederick Soddyfor whom he set the problem of identifying the thorium emanations. Once he had eliminated all the normal chemical reactions, Soddy suggested that it must be one of the inert gases, which they named thoron .They also found another type of thorium they called Thorium X, and kept on finding traces of helium. They also worked with samples of "Uranium X" from William Crookes and radium from Marie Curie. -
DSc.
In 1901 he gained a Doctor of Science from the University of New Zealand. -
Theory of Atomic Disintegration.
In 1902, Rutherford and Soddy produced a "Theory of Atomic Disintegration" to account for all their experiments. Up till then atoms were assumed to be the indestructable basis of all matter and although Curie had suggested that radioactivity was an atomic phenomenon, the idea of the atoms of radioactive substances breaking up was a radically new idea. -
The Nobel Prize.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908 was awarded to Ernest Rutherford "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances". -
New theory of neutrons.
Rutherford postulated the hydrogen nucleus to be a new particle in 1920, which he dubbed the proton. -
DSIR.
Rutherford pushed calls to the Government of New Zealand to support education and research, which led to the formation of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in the following year,in 1925. -
Death.
He died when he was 66 years old.
