Ernest Rutherford: Life of
Ernest Rutherford was born in Spring Grove in New Zealand on August 30th, 1871. His parents, James and Martha, had emigrated from Great Britain and believed their children, numbering 12, should have proper education. At the age of 16 Ernest won his first scholarship to Nelson College, where he was a popular student. He followed with a second scholarship to Canterbury College in Christchurch, and by 1893 had graduated with first class honours in Physics and Mathematics. Rutherford stayed at Canterbury for a further year to study Physics in more detail, particularly how iron reacted in magnetic fields. He also researched electromagnetic (wireless) waves, shortly after they were discovered by the German Heinrich Hertz, and produced two papers on his findings, winning another scholarship in England. When he arrived in Cambridge in 1895, Ernest worked for J.J. Thomson, a lecturer at Cambridge's 'Cavendish Laboratory'. He often wrote letters to his girlfriend, Mary Nelson, and his mother, and in these he depicts how some members of Cavendish were jealous of him, or so he thought. Everywhere Ernest went, he was recognized as being a leader and thinker, with 'amazing concentration'.
He was always happy when something new was discovered, whether it be by him or his students, or somebody completely different, and was always, as a true scientist is, on a never ending quest for answers and the truth. )In 1908 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, for his work on Radioactivity. Nevertheless, Rutherford was awarded the Rumford medal in 1904, and in the same year produced a book, called 'Radioactivity', and his findings on the subject. However, in 1913 Neils Bohr found that electrons did orbit the nucleus without expelling any energy, proving Nagaoka and Rutherford's predictions right. Bibliography:Encyclopaedia Brittanica CD Rom, 1998 Edition. Hantaro Nagaoka presented a similar theorem in 1904 but it was not accepted, as it was widely believe that if electrons circumnavigated the nucleus they would radiate their energy, be pulled into the nucleus almost immediately, and lose their energy. During 1898 he was offered a position as the chair of physics at McGill University in Montreal. He began investigating radium, thorium and actinium, and by 1902 had the theory of radioactivity, which was a controversial idea, and hard to accept for many chemists. "Unfortunately his daughter Eileen died in 1931, but he still liked playing golf, reading, and got along well with others, his fairness earning him the respect of his students and peers. By doing many tests with simple but ingenious apparatus, he was able to deduce Avogardo's Number (the constant number of molecules in a molecular gram of any substance. s or Hertzian waves, and discovered they not only traveled through brick walls but over a distance of two miles. 1911 saw Rutherford's greatest achievement, his nuclear theory of the atom. Rutherford also enjoyed toying with totally new concepts and explaining them to be easily understood by others, particularly his students, had a happy home life, and generally had good health. Ernest soon branched out into an entirely new field: radioactivity. His first and only child was born a year later and was named Eileen.
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Acceptance Essays
