Ernest Rutherford - Scientist Supreme

Milestones

Milestones in the Life and Work of Ernest Rutherford Include:

1871	Born at Spring Grove (now Brightwater), Nelson Province, New Zealand, 30th Aug 1871.
1877	Family moves to Foxhill, Nelson Province.
1877-83	Attended Foxhill School, Nelson Province.
1883	Family moves to Havelock, Marlborough Sounds.
1883-6	Attended Havelock School.
1883	Baby brother Percy died of whooping cough.
1886	Brothers Herbert and Charles drown in the Marlborough Sounds.
1887	Won a Marlborough Scholarship to Nelson College.
1887-9	Attended Nelson College.
1889	Won a University of New Zealand Junior Scholarship.
1890-4	Attended Canterbury College, University of New Zealand, in Christchurch
1892	Joined the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, now the Canterbury Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
1892	Completed BA.
1893	First original research on the high frequency magnetisation of iron. Developed a timing device which could switch circuits in less than one hundred thousandth of a second.
1893	Completed MA with double First Class Honours; in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics, and in Physical Science.
1894	Completed BSc in Chemistry and Geology. Extended his research to higher frequencies using discharging Leyden jars and a Hertzian oscillator. Developed a magnetic detector of very short current pulses.
1894	His first research paper published.
1895	Awarded an Exhibition of 1851 scholarship to go anywhere in the world to carry out research of importance to New Zealand's industries.
1895-8	Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University.
1895	Measured the high frequency dielectric properties of materials. Used his magnetic detector as part of a frequency meter.
1896	Jan. Roentgen publicly announces the discovery of X-rays.
	Feb. Ern sets the world record for the distance over which `wireless' waves were detected.
	Mar. Becquerel announces the discovery of radioactivity.
	Apr. Ern is invited to work with JJ Thomson on electrical conduction in gases.
1897	JJ Thomson announces the discovery of the electron, the first object lighter than an atom.
1898	Ern discovers rays from radioactive materials are of two main types, which he names alpha and beta.
1898-07	McGill University.
1899	Demonstrates the principle which is the basis of the modern smoke detector.
1899	Discovers a radioactive gas, later to be named radon.
1900	Marries Mary Georgina Newton in Christchurch, New Zealand.
1900	Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
1901	DSc from the University of New Zealand. Now Dr Rutherford.
1901	Daughter Eileen born.
1902	Announces formally that "radioactivity is a manifestation of sub-atomic change."
1903	Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
1904	Awarded the Rumford Medal, his first major science prize.
1905	Reconciles geologists and physicists determinations of the age of the Earth.
1905	Family visit to New Zealand.
1907-19	Manchester University.
1908	Invents the Rutherford-Geiger detector of single ionizing particles.
1908	Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
1910	Purchases his first car.
1910	Sister Alice dies.
1911	Ern announces the nuclear model of the atom.
1914	Knighted. Now Sir Ernest Rutherford.
1914	Visits New Zealand. Canterbury College given approval to build a physics department.
1914-18	First World War.
1915-17	Pioneer work on acoustic methods of detecting submarines.
1916	Ern and W H Bragg patent apparatus for determining the direction of submarine sound.
1916	States publicly that he hoped mankind should not discover how to extract the energy from the nucleus until man was living at peace with his neighbour.
1917	Leads the allied delegation to America to transfer anti-submarine knowledge.
1917	Becomes the world's first successful alchemist, changing nitrogen into hydrogen ie he splits the atom.
1919-37	Director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University.
1919	Elected an inaugural Fellow of the New Zealand Institute, now the Royal Society of New Zealand.
1920	Predicts the existence of the neutron.
1922	Elected Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Science 2/12/22.
1924	Edward Appleton and Miles Barnett (of New Zealand) prove the existence of the ionosphere. Appleton receives the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physics.
1925	Elected Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Science 3/1/25.
1925-30	President of the Royal Society of London.
1925	Order of Merit.
1925	Visits Australia and New Zealand. The New Zealand DSIR is formed in 1926.
1928	Father dies.
1929-37	Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
1930	Daughter Eileen dies two days before Christmas.
1931	Raised to the Peerage at New Year, now Ernest, Lord Rutherford of Nelson.
1931-33	President of the Institute of Physics.
1932	Cockcroft and Walton use an accelerator to split the atom. Chadwick discoveres the neutron. Each received a Nobel Prize.
1933-37	President of the Academic Assistance Council.
1934	Ern and Oliphant discover H³ (tritium) and He³.
1935	Mother dies.
1935	Opens the LMS Railway Research Labs at Derby, 10th Dec 1935.
1937	Died 19th Oct 1937. Ashes interred in Westminister Abbey.