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Ernest Rutherford Architect of the Atom
Peter Kelman and A Harris Stone
1969 Prentice Hall - History of Science Series
Library of Congress Cat No 68-13215
72 pages. Hard Cover.
21 b/w line drawings.
Purchasing Details.
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My Comments on This Book
This is generally a small but accurate book on Rutherford. My only issue is giving Geiger too much credit for the ideas
concerned with the alpha-scattering experiments. These were done under Rutherford's direction because Rutherford, when in Canada, had
discovered small angle scattering (typically 2 degrees) of alpha particles when passed through a gas or thin slip of mica. He needed a
sharp beam of alphas when trying to deviate the alphas using electric or magnetic fields to determine their mass, as JJ Thomson did for
electrons. The alphas were far more massive so hardly deviated at all. In fact until then they were called undeviable rays until Rutherford
proved otherwise.
In his 1906 paper from Canada (Phil. Mag. xii p134-146 1906) he had concluded "that the atoms of matter must be the seat
of very intense electrical forces..." When he went to Manchester one of the first things he did was to set Geiger to measure accurately the
small angles over which alphas were scattered by a gas or thin solid. This was just forward scattering over typically 2 degrees, as
Rutherford had detected in Canada when using an insensitive photographic plate as a detector. It was only when Geiger reported to
Rutherford that undergraduate Marsden was ready for his own project that Rutherford set Marsden to see if he could detect alpha particles
reflected off a metal surface, as was known for beta particles but it was thought alphas wouldn't be because they were so much more massive.
Errors Noted.
p 3 "He had received the first graduate student fellowship at that time." No, R was the second New Zealand recipient of an Exhibition of 1851
Research Scholarship.
p 3 Rutherford never worked on radio in New Zealand, he was investigating the magnetism of iron under high frequency waves.
p 4 At Cambridge Rutherford first used his frequency meter, developed in New Zealand, to measure the dielectric properties of solids at
high frequencies, a topic of interest to, and suggested by, JJ Thomson. He studied WT signalling using his magnetic detector of WT signals.
JJ Thompson was so impressed with his abilities that he invited Rutherford to join him in his own researches on how a perfectly good electrical
insulator, a gas, could be turned into a perfectly good electrical conductor, a gas-discharge. Initially he used UV light to ionize the gas, then
X-rays and radioactive rays.
p 4 Radioactivity was discovered a month after X-rays, not a year.
p 5 Wrong emphasis on Rutherford's order of research as above.
p 8 Marsden's work as in my comments re the contents.
p19 Why Geiger used an air-free container is explained as in my comments section.
p24-29 Garbled, as per p19.
p54 Rutherford didn't study wireless waves in New Zealand. See www.rutherford.org.nz under Miscellaneous - Rutherford Mythology - Wireless
Signalling in NZ.
p56 Rutherford could go anywhere in the world with his scholarship. On board the ship to England he learned German as Germany was a centre
of research excellence. He went to the Cavendish because its director, JJ Thomson, had written one of the electrical research books Rutherford
had used in his New Zealand research. On first meeting they liked each other.
p56 Rutherford was the first of the BA by research students that Cambridge admitted, ie students who had graduated at other universities.
Previously students took their degree at Cambridge, worked as assistants for a few years, obtained a college fellowship, then later became
a professor. It was these students who were against the newcomers because they saw their future opportunities open to more competition.
p59 See the comments for p4.
p60 Rutherford didn't attract Soddy to McGill. Soddy had gone to Canada hoping for a professorship at Toronto but didn't get it. He was at McGill
in a temporary chemistry position (demonstrationship) when he led the opposition to the physical Society's meeting of 28/3/01 "The existence of
bodies smaller than an atom." Rutherford was chairman and spoke to the affirmative. Soddy's talk was "Chemical Evidence for the Indivisibility
of the Atom". Afterwards, Rutherford invited Soddy to join his research to chemically identify thorium emanation, through which Rutherford was well
on the way to determining that radioactivity was just natural transmutation.
p61 Cox took the teaching load to allow Rutherford to get on with his researches. eg see my book.
p63 Rutherford was a skilled researcher before he left New Zealand. He had 3 degrees and two years research at the forefront of the electrical
technology of the day. He also took with him two inventions he used in his first researches in England, a frequency meter for very fast transient
electrical currents and his magnetic detector of these current pulses.
Contents
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Introduction |
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Contents |
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Ch 1 |
Wanted: A New Design for the Atom |
1
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Ch 2 |
Alpha Rays: Tools of the Trade |
11
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Ch 3 |
Geiger and Marsden: The Apprentices |
19
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Ch 4 4 |
The Atom: Designed by the Master |
30
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Ch 5 |
Design: Rejected-Modified-Accepted |
46
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Ch 6 |
Rutherford: Education of a Scientist |
52
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Glossary |
65
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Index |
69
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Reviews
Not known at this stage.
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