Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, in Brightwater near Nelson, New Zealand. A student of extraordinary aptitude at Canterbury College, he won a scholarship to the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University to conduct research under J. J. Thomson, the discoverer of the electron.

At McGill University in Canada, Rutherford proved that radioactivity involves the spontaneous transmutation of one chemical element into another, a revolutionary discovery that earned him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Moving to the University of Manchester, he orchestrated the famous Geiger-Marsden gold foil experiment in 1909, which proved that virtually all atomic mass and positive charge is concentrated in a tiny central core—the atomic nucleus.

In 1917, Rutherford achieved the first artificial nuclear reaction, splitting a nitrogen atom with alpha particles and discovering the proton. Later serving as Cavendish Professor at Cambridge, he mentored twelve future Nobel Prize laureates, including James Chadwick, Niels Bohr, and John Cockcroft. Rutherford passed away on October 19, 1937, and was laid to rest near Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey.