Ernest Rutherford

Early Life

Ernest Rutherford was born August 30, 1871 in Spring Grove, New Zealand. Rutherford was the fourth child of 12. His parents James and Martha weren't every wealth, his mother was a school teacher and his father had little education who made a little income. Due to this financial crisis his motto became “We haven’t the money, so we’ve got to think”.

Discoveries

1. Rutherford identified a simpler and more commercially viable means of detecting radio waves.

2.He was the first to split the atom and molecule into ions.

3. Nuclear reactions became his main focus. He was then known as the father of Nuclear Age.

Awards

1. He was knighted in 1914.

2. In 1931, he was granted the title Baron Rutherford of Nelson.

3. He was also elected president of the Institute of Physics in 1931.

Death

After the complications of a strangulated hernia Baron Rutherford died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937 at age 66.