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Sir Ernest Rutherford
(30 Aug 1871 - 19 Oct 1937)
New Zealand-English physicist who laid the groundwork for the development of nuclear physics. He identified alpha, beta and gamma emissions during radioactive decay, and devised the alpha-particle scattering experiment that led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus.
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Sir Ernest Rutherford Quotes on Discovery (6 quotes)
>> Click for 38 Science Quotes by Sir Ernest Rutherford
>> Click for 38 Science Quotes by Sir Ernest Rutherford
[It] is not the nature of things for any one man to make a sudden, violent discovery; science goes step by step and every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you hear of a sudden unexpected discovery—a bolt from the blue—you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence of one man or another, and it is the mutual influence which makes the enormous possibility of scientific advance. Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single man, but on the combined wisdom of thousands of men, all thinking of the same problem and each doing his little bit to add to the great structure of knowledge which is gradually being erected.
— Sir Ernest Rutherford
Concluding remark in Lecture ii (1936) on 'Forty Years of Physics', revised and prepared for publication by J.A. Ratcliffe, collected in Needham and Pagel (eds.), Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge Arranged by the History of Science Committee, (1938), 73-74. Note that the words as prepared for publication may not be verbatim as spoken in the original lecture by the then late Lord Rutherford.
I came into the room, which was half dark, and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the earth, where my views conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me! Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the earth, provided no new source was discovered. That prophetic utterance refers to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! the old boy beamed upon me.
— Sir Ernest Rutherford
The italicized phrase refers to “no new source” of energy. Concerning a Lecture by Rutherford, at the Royal Institution, dealing with the energy of subterranean radium, which had an effect prolonging the heat of the Earth. Arthur S. Eve wrote that Rutherford “used to tell humorous stories about this lecture long afterwards:” — followed by the subject quote above, as its own paragraph. As given in Arthur S. Eve, Rutherford: Being the Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, O.M. (1939), 107. The story lacks quotation marks, and thus should be regarded as perhaps Eve’s own words giving a faithful recollection, rather than Rutherford’s verbatim words. (However, note that the style used throughout the book is to omit quotation marks from their own separate paragraph.)
I think a strong claim can be made that the process of scientific discovery may be regarded as a form of art. This is best seen in the theoretical aspects of Physical Science. The mathematical theorist builds up on certain assumptions and according to well understood logical rules, step by step, a stately edifice, while his imaginative power brings out clearly the hidden relations between its parts. A well constructed theory is in some respects undoubtedly an artistic production. A fine example is the famous Kinetic Theory of Maxwell. ... The theory of relativity by Einstein, quite apart from any question of its validity, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent work of art.
Responding to the toast, 'Science!' at the Royal Academy of the Arts in 1932.)
Responding to the toast, 'Science!' at the Royal Academy of the Arts in 1932.)
— Sir Ernest Rutherford
Quoted in Lawrence Badash, 'Ernest Rutherford and Theoretical Physics,' in Robert Kargon and Peter Achinstein (eds.) Kelvin's Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives (1987), 352.
It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.
[Recalling in 1936 the discovery of the nucleus in 1909, when some alpha particles were observed instead of travelling through a very thin gold foil were seen to rebound backward, as if striking something much more massive than the particles themselves.]
[Recalling in 1936 the discovery of the nucleus in 1909, when some alpha particles were observed instead of travelling through a very thin gold foil were seen to rebound backward, as if striking something much more massive than the particles themselves.]
— Sir Ernest Rutherford
Quoted in Abraham Pais, Inward Bound (1986), 189, from E. N. da C. Andrade, Rutherford and the nature of the atom, (1964) 111.
The discovery [of the neutron] is of the greatest interest and importance—possibly the greatest since the artificial disintegration of the atom.
— Sir Ernest Rutherford
In 'Discovers Neutron, Embryonic Matter', New York Times (28 Feb 1932), 1. James Chadwick’s announcement of the discovery of the neutron in a Letter to the Editor in Nature was published the day before.
The year 1896 … marked the beginning of what has been aptly termed the heroic age of Physical Science. Never before in the history of physics has there been witnessed such a period of intense activity when discoveries of fundamental importance have followed one another with such bewildering rapidity.
— Sir Ernest Rutherford
In 'The Electrical Structure of Matter', Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1924), C2.
![Ernest Rutherford quote: [From uranium] there are present at least two distinct types of radiation](https://todayinsci.com/R/Rutherford_Ernest/RutherfordErnest-AlphaBetaThm.jpg)
See also:
- 30 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Rutherford's birth.
- A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford, by Richard Reeves. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Ernest Rutherford.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
