Places of Ernest Rutherford's life
Cambridge
(First period)
Pictures:
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Entrance to the Cavendish laboratory - Source: Wikipedia
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JJ Thomson in his office at the Cavendish Laboratory. Source: AIP .
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Great Court of Trinity College - Source: Wikipedia
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King's College Dining Hall, present day. Source: University Rooms
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Dinner at King's College around 1900. Source: King's College official site .
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When he landed in England at the end of September 1895, Ernest Rutherford was the lucky holder of a merit scholarship, obtained for his work in Christchurch (the so-called Expostion scholarship of 1851 ).
He also had some pennies in his pocket, since his brother George loaned him some money before he left New Zealand. But beside that, he has nothing; not even a clue about the place he was going to work.
Staying temporarily in London, he wrote to the head of the best experimental physics department in all the Empire: the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.
His correspondent was quick to write back. His name was John Joseph Thomson . Between these two men then began a relationship, made of mutual respect and admiration, which will last for forty two years.
From his beginnings in Cambridge, Ernest embarked on the study of electro-magnetic waves, in particular by developing a magnetic receiver .
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The potential uses of this instrument, in particular to communicate with boats in foggy weather, quickly assured Ernest a small notoriety in the various colleges of the city.
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He was notably invited to dine at the head table of King's College at the beginning of 1896. He then sat alongside the Principal, a grand-nephew of Jane Austen. Ernest was only 25 and felt like a "donkey in a lion's skin", as he writes to his fiancee, May .
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Quickly, however, JJ Thomson invited him to look into other phenomena: ultraviolet, then X-rays, then Becquerel rays.
These last two types of radiation, discovered in 1895 and 1896 respectively, deserved a lot of attention: they seemed to have very specific powers... and no one knew anything about them.
Clearing an unknown domain was a challenge that Ernest greatly enjoy.
However, he was not the only one to try to decipher the mysteries of Becquerel's radiation (he leaves the X-rays aside quite quickly): in France, a researcher of Polish origin, helped by her husband, had embarked on a titanic job: to determine if the radiations revealed by Becquerel existed only in uranium. Her name was Marie Curie and in 1898 she found that thorium had the same power as uranium; before discovering two elements even more powerful and completely unknown until then.
Since she identified them first, she had the right to baptize them: she named the first polonium and the second radium. She also invented a term that will designate this new field of research in which she was involved: radioactivity.
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The same year, Rutherford added two words to the lexicon of this scientific discipline of which he and the Curies were the pioneers.
He indeed proves that "Becquerel's rays" are of two types: he designated them by the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.
His first successes earned him to be hired as a professor of physics at McGill University in Montreal... only three years after his arrival in Cambridge.
But his links with the English university town did not end in 1898: not only did he create lasting friendships there (with JJ Thomson, but also Richard MacLaurin, Paul Langevin, John Sealy Townsend, CTR Wilson...) , but, above all, he would come back in the very same laboratory 21 years later ... with quite different functions.
On the 1898 photograph of the Cavendish research students, we recognize JJ Thomsonf ront row, center. To his right stands Paul Langevin, while Ernest Rutherford is right behind him. CTR Wilson is behind Langevin. These four characters appear on the cover of the first volume of my biography of Ernest Rutherford, published on the day of his 150th birthday (for more information, see the page "Novel"),
Cambridge University Image Gallery
Captions:
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Plans of the three levels of the Cavendish laboratory, annotated by James Clerk Maxwell. Source: Cavendish Laboratory University of Cambridge
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Great Court of Trinity College - Source:Wikipedia
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Dining room of King's College, present day. Source :University Rooms
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Diner at King's College circa 1900. Source:King's College official website.
