Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, FRSwas a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth30 August 1871
CityBrightwater, New Zealand
science talking atomic-energy
The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.
race order track
I have to keep going, as there are always people on my track. I have to publish my present work as rapidly as possible in order to keep in the race. The best sprinters in this road of investigation are Becquerel and the Curies...
strong simple ideas
I am a great believer in the simplicity of things and as you probably know I am inclined to hang on to broad & simple ideas like grim death until evidence is too strong for my tenacity.
clever reading science
I've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911)
children pieces watches
We are rather like children, who must take a watch to pieces to see how it works.
witty humorous insightful
The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don't.
bartender theory damn
A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.
business science thinking
We haven't got the money, so we've got to think.
atoms looks experiments
Now I know what the atom looks like.
sunshine air secret
When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life.
math science needs
If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
pieces tissue-paper shells
It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back to hit you.
lying men discovery
Every good laboratory consists of first rate men working in great harmony to insure the progress of science; but down at the end of the hall is an unsociable, wrong-headed fellow working on unprofitable lines, and in his hands lies the hope of discovery.
Never say, "I tried it once and it did not work."