View source for Ernest Rutherford

{{nobelprize|Chemistry}}
[[File:Ernest Rutherford LOC.jpg|thumb|Ernest Rutherford]]

'''Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson ''' [[Order of Merit|OM]] [[Privy Council of the United Kingdom|PC]] [[Royal Society|FRS]] (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a [[New Zealand]]-born British [[scientist]]. He won the [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry]] in 1908 for his work on [[nuclear physics]], and for his [[theory]] of the structure of the [[atom]].

== Career ==
Rutherford was one of the first researchers in [[Nuclear physics|nuclear]] [[physics]], after the discovery of [[radiation]] by the French physicist [[Henri Becquerel]] in 1896. Rutherford discovered the [[Half-life (element)|radioactive half-life]], and the three parts of radiation which he named [[alpha particle|Alpha]], [[beta particle|Beta]], and [[gamma ray|Gamma]]. He also discovered that alpha particles were the [[Atomic nucleus|nuclei]] of [[Helium]]. Rutherford's [[Geiger–Marsden experiment]] led to what we know today about the atomic structure, where the atom is a [[Nucleus (physics)|nucleus]] and [[electron]]s orbit around it.

In 1919, Rutherford made the world's first [[artificial]] [[nuclear reaction]], where he put [[alpha particle]]s with [[nitrogen]] [[gas]] and created particles of oxygen [[isotope]]s and [[proton]]s. This was nuclear [[transmutation]], changing nitrogen gas into oxygen gas.

Rutherford was the leader of the [[Cavendish Laboratory]] in [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]]. He proved the existence of the nucleus and that is was composed of [[proton]]s and [[neutron]]s. In 1932 [[James Chadwick]] made an experiment at the Cavendish Lab that showed Rutherford was right.

[[Rutherford College]], a school in [[Auckland]], New Zealand, was named after him.

== Related pages ==
*[[List of scientists from Oceania]]

== Other websites ==
{{wikiquote-en}}
{{Commons|Ernest Rutherford}}
* [http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/museum/rutherford_museum.htm The Rutherford Museum]
* [http://www.rutherford.org.nz/ Rutherford Scientist Supreme]
* [http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1908/rutherford-bio.html Ernest Rutherford] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723230048/http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1908/rutherford-bio.html |date=2008-07-23 }} @ nobel.se
* "[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bpruth.html Ernest Rutherford 1871–1937]". A Science Odyssey, pbs.org.

{{Nobel Prize in Chemistry}}
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[[Category:1871 births]]
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[[Category:New Zealand chemists]]
[[Category:British chemists]]
[[Category:British nuclear physicists]]
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[[Category:New Zealand Nobel Prize winners]]
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[[Category:Academics of the University of Manchester]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Cambridge]]